CHAIRS — Hepplewhite
Hepplewhite designs are found along with Sheraton in the 1775-1790 period. They were both influenced by classical designs —a search for elegance. The main Hepplewhite forms are shown in this section.
A camel back design with 9 serpentine front and drop-in seat. The legs are Chippendale in form except that they now taper instead of being the same size throughout their length. The splat is reminiscent of Chippendale and so are the small leaf carvings on the top rail. What could be the start of the Prince of Wales plumes (which Hepplewhite was possibly the first to use on chairs) are to be seen halfway up the splat — an elegant chair.
c.1775    Set of six $6, 000 — 8, 000
A fine chair almost straight out of Hepplewhite’s design book but not a style normally associated with him. A high quality chair with tapering fluted legs, arms and back uprights. Leaf and swag carving in the square back are all classical motifs. (Just as Sheraton shows the shield back so Hepplewhite shows several of these square back designs.) c. 1780
A very good quality shield back chair. The Prince of Wales plumes and their supports are beautifully carved. The shield itself has a raised section at the edges which serves to emphasise the shape. This is repeated on
the legs. c. 1780
Set of six $7, 000 — .0, 000 Six  two $12, 000 — 16, 000
The legs are plain tapered, but the well shaped and moulded shield back, the balanced arrangement of the splat and the carved decoration mark it as a chair of some quality but it clearly does not come up to the
standard of the previous example.
Another Hepplewhite variation, the hoop back. Note the continued use of the Chippendale moulding but on a well tapered leg. The hoop-back is decorated with carving and the splat, which is typical of the type, fits the
hoop well. A successful chair. c.1790
A shield back design. There is a striking contrast between the well carved splat with the Prince of Wales plumes and the dumpy legs which appear to taper too quickly (compare the last example). The lack of any
decoration on the shield which is slightly awkward looking suggests a provincially made piece. c.1785
An interesting comparison with example 161. It is more Hepplewhite in that the legs taper. But the splat is a near disaster: the outline is not true, the lower half is mean and its design poor. Most marked, however, is
the contrast between the way 161 is successfully terminated at the top of the cuts in the splats and the way this fails.
A painted example of another popular Hepplewhite design and one which was extensively copied in late Victorian times. The quality of the painting determines the price. c. 1790

The camel back is there, the splat works well and the bottom half is Chippendale. A rather stiff little provincial chair but the outcome is successful, particularly if the patination is good.c. 1790-1810  Shows a much simpler treatment avoiding the use of any carving. The legs are now quite simple with no reeding or moulding. c.1810Shows a provincial interpretation of Sheraton design incorporating what might be thought of as a very simplified adaptation of the honeysuckle motif. Rather thick, squat and heavy with the back marginally small for the bulk of the seat.A country interpretation in beech or oak with drop-in seat and a simply formed decoration of horizontal splats. 1810
The simple country `Sheraton’ with dished solid wooden seat and stretchers. Decoration is confined to moulding lines with a veneered piece of mahogany in the centre of the splat. 1810
Before the end of the Georgian-Regency era a profusion of chair designs appeared which seems to indicate an explosion in production. It thus becomes more difficult to classify chairs by quality although certain obvious features can be identified.

Historical background
Designs for Thomas Chippendale’s chairs were freely available once his pattern book, The Gentleman and Cabinet Maker’s Director was published in 1754 and were
Signs of authenticity
1. Solid, heavy mahogany, smooth and silky to the touch.
2. Underframes of beech, plane or sycamore.
3. Crest rails fitting into tops of side rails where design scrolls outward-curving.
4. Crest rails fitting between curving side rails where design is rounded.
5. Drop-in or overstuffed seats.
6. Separate shoe-piece attached to back of seat frame.
7. On chairs with cabriole legs, deep apron with rounded corners to seat frame.
8. On chairs with square legs, square corners to seat frame.
9. Seat frames on early dining chairs straight (not dished until c.1780).
10. On chairs with arms, arm supports set back almost half the depth of the seat, screwed with hand-cut screws, the screwholes concealed by plugs or dowels, now virtually invisible.
Likely restoration and repair
11. Later carving and fluting to legs – carving will not stand proud of silhouette.
12. Broken back legs repaired or replaced, by dowelling into sawn ends on the line of the apron.
13. Drop-in seats replaced with overstuffed – the apron beneath the seat material will be
polished like the rest of the frame, not left plain or made of correct underframe wood.
14. Heavy carved decoration on back side rails – either carved later, or a marriage between a late Victorian copy and a period chair. Correct decoration for period was plain or fluted.
15. Later, Victorian cabriole legs dowelled into underframe to replace broken originals. Bandy-legged appearance where not enough thickness of wood has been used for the legs.
made with modifications and variations by numerous furniture-makers throughout the period 1754-80.
The main shift in design from previous shapes was the squared, almost over-running shape of shoulder and crest rail, and the pierced and carved central splat. Mahogany was used almost exclusively for dining chairs of this period: its immense strength and density allowed pierced work of great elaboration. The beginning of the period maintained rounded
corners to chair seats, but once Chippendale reintroduced plain squared legs, seat corners were also square.
Chippendale chairs were made in sets for dining rooms. Their backs were lower to allow the newly adopted custom of dining d la Berline – with footmen serving dishes individually, instead of the hitherto traditional English way of dining, from a side table heaped with food.
Construction and materials
Throughout the Chippendale period, dining chairs were made in solid mahogany, oiled and rubbed smooth with brick dust or sand to a glossy, silky finish. The backs of chairs were lower, with square shoulders often terminating in small upward-curling scrolls. There were two types of construction: the traditional, with the crest rail fitting between the two side rails which curved inward towards the centre, and the innovative, with the crest rail almost over-running the outward-curving side rails, like a cupid’s bow. On chairs with arms, the supports were higher and the arms ran almost parallel with the seat, fixed to the sides of the seat frames almost half way back, to allow for fashionable full skirts.
Detail
Although the central splats, crest rail and legs were profusely decorated, the stiles were seldom carved, but left plain or fluted. Seats of chairs were sometimes overstuffed or had deep decorative aprons, often serpentine in shape.
It is surprising to learn that the technique of lamination was first used for the fretted backs and ornament of the Chippendale period. Layers of veneer of alternating grain were glued together and then cut with a fret saw into intricate shapes.
Variations
Simplified variations of Chippendale’s designs were made by most country furniture-makers, usually in oak, but also in elm, beech, ash and fruitwoods. They had plain wooden seats made of planking nailed to the underframe, usually in more than one piece, with the grain going from side to side. Occasionally they are to be found with rush seats.
The designs of the back include the crudest cut-out work – most commonly a curving variation of four or five straight splats, either in a wheatsheaf shape or an open vase or violin shape. Most widespread and enduring are those made in a
simplified ladderback design. Legs are square, sometimes slightly chamfered on the inner sides. The back stretcher is still set higher than the front, and the two side stretchers are parallel. The tops of the front legs form the sides of the seat frame, and there is usually a fairly deep apron.
Below left: classic example of later Chippendale, c.1700, ladder-back.
Centre: a provincial vase splat. Right: classic North country ladder-back.
Far right: nineteenth-century ‘ribband-back’.
Reproductions
Nineteenth century
Provincial furniture-makers were often as much as 50 years behind the most recent fashions, and ‘Chippendale’ chairs were still being made at the beginning of the nineteenth century. By the mid-nineteenth century they were being made by many furniture manufacturers, slightly modified, with rather meagre cabriole legs, or with the slimmer, scrolled leg and foot typical of the later period of Chippendale design. Often designs such as the ribband back and its variations had square legs and stretchers instead of cabriole legs.
Many Chippendale-style chairs were mass-produced for public rooms, assembly halls, hotels and board rooms, with machine-cut central splats, square, leather-covered seats, often dished, and with the shoe-piece made as an integral part of the back seat rail. Quality of materials and craftsmanship divide the mass-produced from good Victorian copies, which today are fetching extremely good prices.
Price bands
Late eighteenth-century mahogany, £400-550 each. Set of six, £5,000-7,000.
Country versions, £120-190. Set of six, £2,160-3,420.
Nineteenth-century walnut, £350-400 each.
Nineteenth-century mahogany – set of six, £3,000-4,000.