Important Americana: Furniture and Folk Art
Important Americana: Furniture and Folk Art
Thomas Chippendale. The Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker's Director: London: 1762
Lot Closed
January 21, 03:33 PM GMT
Estimate
8,000 - 12,000 USD
Lot Details
Description
Thomas Chippendale
The 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...The Third Edition. London: Printed for the Author, 1762
Folio (375 x 248 mm). Engraved dedication, 200 engraved plates by Darly, Foster, Taylor, Cloues, Miller and others after designs by Chippendale; trimmed close at fore-edge with minor loss to captions and plate numbers of some landscape oriented plates. Contemporary reverse calf, covers elaborately paneled in blind; expertly rebacked to style retaining original red morocco lettering piece.
The third—and arguably best—edition of Chippendale's groundbreaking furniture pattern book
The Director was intended to function as a trade catalogue. This edition contains an additional 39 plates not found in the previous editions of 1754 and 1755, and was the last edition to be published in Chippendale's lifetime. The third edition began to appear in installments in 1759, and was completed in 1762.
Although Thomas Chippendale's famous pattern book, The Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker's Director, was first published in 1754, and reissued the following year, it was only with a greatly enlarged new edition in 1762 that it had a serious influence in America, particularly in Philadelphia. Several copies are known to have been available there during the 1760s and, not surprisingly, Chippendale's richly carved style had a pervasive influence on local cabinetmaking" (Heilbrunn). The Director principally depicts four of Chippendale's most famous styles: English, French rococo, Chinoiserie, and Gothic, and was extensively used by furniture makers, making copies with the plates in good condition exceptional.
The first and most important published book of furniture designs in 18th century England