[Illustration: Illus. 187 and 188.—Hepplewhite Chairs.] The chair in Illustration 188 belongs to W. S. G. Kennedy, Esq., of Worcester. The rails are not carved or inlaid, but the fan-shaped ornament at the lower point of the shield back is of holly and ebony, inlaid. This design of Hepplewhite chair is more frequently found than any other. [Illustration: Illus. 189.—Hepplewhite Chair.] A specialty of Hepplewhite’s was what he terms “a very elegant fashion.” The chair-backs were finished with painted or japanned work. This was not the lacquering which had been fashionable during the first half of the eighteenth century, with Chinese figures, but it was a process of coating the chairs with a sort of lacquer varnish, and then painting them in gold or colors upon a black ground. [Illustration: Illus. 190.—Hepplewhite Chair.] Haircloth was used for the seats of chairs; the edges were finished with brass-headed nails, arranged sometimes to simulate festoons, as in Illustration 191. A Hepplewhite chair with a back of quite a different design from the examples described previously, is shown in Illustration 189. The back is heart-shaped, and the ornamentation is of inlaying in light and dark wood. This chair is one of four in the Poore collection at Indian Hill. They formed a part of the set bought by Washington for Mount Vernon, and were in use there at the time of his death. A chair owned by Miss Mary Coates of Philadelphia is shown in Illustration 190. The characteristic bell-flower is carved in the middle of the back of this chair. [Illustration: Illus. 191.—Sheraton Chair.] Hepplewhite in turn was superseded by Sheraton, whose book of designs was published in 1791, only two years later than Hepplewhite’s; but that short time sufficed for Sheraton to say that “this book [Hepplewhite’s] has already caught the decline”; while he asserted of Chippendale’s designs, that “they are now wholly antiquated and laid aside, though possessed of great merit, according to the times in which they were executed.” Sheraton’s chairs retained many of Hepplewhite’s characteristics, but the great difference between them lay in the construction of the back, which it was Sheraton’s aim to strengthen. His chairs, except in rare cases, do not have the heart or shield shaped back, which distinctly marks Hepplewhite chairs, but the back is rectangular in shape, the top rail being curved, straight, or with a raised piece in the centre, corresponding to the piece in the middle of the back. A rail extends across the back a few inches above the seat, and the splat or spindles end in this rail, and never extend to the seat. [Illustration: Illus. 192.—Sheraton Chairs.]