_Three design chairs—the one to the right offering alternative treatments of certain details—from Chippendale’s_ Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker’s Director: Being a large Collection of the Most Elegant and Useful Designs of Household Furniture, in the Most Fashionable Taste. (_Third edition, London, 1762_)] This period lasted through the Revolution; the wartime breach of relations with England all but cut off the transfer to America of the Adam style that was the rage of London in the 1770’s. After the Revolution the designs of George Hepplewhite and, late in the century, Thomas Sheraton followed the usual route across the Atlantic. Throughout the century, too, some regional differences can be discerned. New England followed old England in social customs and tastes but with a tinge of stateliness and a restraint of design in furniture that may have had distant Puritan ancestry. In New York, certainly, the ideas of the original Dutch settlers persisted in coloring later English influences in matters of taste. German immigrants to Pennsylvania brought sturdy non-English preferences to the areas they settled outside Philadelphia. The city itself, of course, always remained a cosmopolitan center—if a somewhat sober one—whose furniture showed the English origins of many of its chief makers. The southern colonies, and particularly Virginia, were more closely tied to the mother country in sentiment and economy than were the others. Virginians, therefore, probably mirrored English tastes more faithfully than many of their compatriots. _APRON-STRING EFFECTS_ English products were so much admired in Virginia, in fact, and so easily obtained by those who could afford choice things, that the local artisan had little chance to compete. Whether cause or consequence of this lack of demand for their services, Virginia cabinetmakers appear to have been less highly skilled and less highly schooled in the craft than their colleagues in London and in a number of large colonial cities. There was no “school” of cabinetry in eighteenth-century Williamsburg such as developed in Philadelphia, Newport, Charleston, and elsewhere. A Virginian who wanted fine furniture might order it from one of these cities. More likely, he would buy it at a sale of “venture” furniture made in a northern or middle colony and shipped south to be sold for the best price it would bring. Or, he could send to England for his wants. This was not so difficult a transaction as might at first appear. Tobacco was the source of Virginia’s wealth, and tobacco had to be shipped to England for sale. The typical large Tidewater planter consigned his annual crop to an English merchant who received, handled, and sold it. After expense deductions, the balance in the merchant’s hands represented the planter’s profits.