French and English furniture : $b distinctive styles and periods described and illustratedSingleton, Esther
History
French and English furniture : $b distinctive styles and periods described and illustrated
Singleton, Esther
Furniture -- England; Furniture -- France
Frames and brackets for marble slabs, picture frames and frames for
looking-glasses, girandoles, sconces, etc., etc., appealed very
naturally to the carver. The very charming bracket, No. 1 on Plate XLII.
with its frets, its scrolls, shells, roses, and leaves, which was, of
course, intended for gold leaf, is very simple when compared with the
girandoles and mirrors, of which Chippendale has given so many examples.
One frame for a marble slab (really a console table) he evidently likes.
It is “supported by two piping Fauns, leaning against two vines,
intermingled with foliage, etc. It will have a grand appearance,” he
adds, “if executed with judgment and neatly gilt.” Æsop and mythology
and Chinese subjects afford Chippendale plentiful suggestion for other
consoles. The pier glass on Plate XLII. shows Chippendale when he is
most himself. This is 44 inches high and 28 inches wide, and the frames
fairly bristle with spiky tufts of grass, scrolls, leaves, flowers,
dripping water and long-tailed, open-mouthed, excited birds, while at
the top under a small canopy stands a Chinese holding a tray of fruit.
The mirror is in three panels: a large central one with a smaller one on
each side.
The girandole was also subject to the most fantastic kind of carving,
out of which the sconce arms emerged in graceful sweeps. One of great
interest is carved with the fox and grapes from Æsop while another
represents a piece of ruins intermingled with various ornaments, and
another shows a squirrel eating nuts.
No sideboard nor buffet appears in any edition of Chippendale’s designs.
He gives a number of sideboard-tables, however, which are long, heavy
tables that stand on four legs. These he carves ornately in either the
Gothic or Chinese style, and specimens are shown on Plate XLI., Nos. 1,
2, 3 and 4.
“Chandeliers,” Chippendale says, “are generally made of glass and
sometimes of brass. But if neatly done in wood and gilt in burnished
gold, would look better and come much cheaper.”
A standing-candlestand appears on Plate XLI. This is delicately and
gracefully carved in wreathing leaves and scrolls, blossoming flowers
and dripping water. Other articles for illumination are “lanthorns” for
halls, passages and staircases; some of them are square, some have six
sides and others are egg-shaped. These he directs to be “made of brass
cast from wooden moulds.”
The chimney-piece afforded Chippendale the greatest scope. He published
many designs far more ornate than the one that appears in Plate XXXVII.
Indeed, it is sometimes difficult to follow out all the details of
carving bestowed upon them. One very ornate example, he says, “requires
great care in the execution. The Imbossments must be very bold and the
Foliage neatly laid down, and the whole properly relieved. The top may
be gilt, as likewise some other ornamental parts.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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