# Chippendale furniture **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 28, 2017, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chippendale-furniture/783196 "2017-03-28T03:43:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Lucas\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lucas_jackson/32/303_2.png) [@Lucas\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucas_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2017, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chippendale-furniture/783196/1 "2017-03-28T03:43:43Z")
A friend just told me that no piece of Chippendale furniture can actually be attributed to having been made by Thomas Chippendale. Is this true? I googled around a bit but couldnt seem to find the answer. ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2017, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chippendale-furniture/783196/2 "2017-03-28T04:00:28Z")
Chippendale ran a large workshop, employing perhaps 50 joiners, cabinetmakers, polishers and other craftsmen. He himself was responsible for design, marketing and overall management. It’s not likely that he did much of the actual cabinetry. Of course, it didn’t start out that way. His father was a woodworker and he himself was trained. And presumably his business started out in a small way, with him doing a good deal of the work. We can identify many pieces which are known to have come Chippendale’s workshop, but it’s unlikely that he worked on many of them (though it is possible). But Chippendale’s fame is as a designer, not a craft worker. The standards of workmanship in his firm were high, but there is no reason to think that any piece in which he had an actual hand was better produced than pieces which were produced by other hands. What makes a genuine Chippendale genuine is that it was designed by him and produced in his workshop. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Goob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c77e96/32.png) [@Mr.Goob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Goob)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2017, 7:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chippendale-furniture/783196/3 "2017-03-28T07:47:11Z")
Same idea as with turn of the century Tiffany lamps. A lot of the time you see it noted as Tiffany Studios. ---
**Author:** ![bob\_2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bob_2/32/3341_2.png) [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2017, 9:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chippendale-furniture/783196/5 "2017-03-28T09:32:54Z")
He was an entrepreneur who ran a large business a bit like a modern fashion house. The ‘names’ on the masthead, do not actually sit at a sewing machine making the frocks. > [@](#): > > Chippendale described himself as an ‘upholder’ which implied that he was able to supply his clients with furnishings of every kind. In effect, he was an entrepreneur running a large business employing perhaps as many as 50 in-house craftsmen and any number of out-workers. He was the artistic director of the enterprise, supervising the workforce and its production, appeasing clients and always keeping one step ahead of new fashions. Ideally, he preferred long-running commissions to equip large country or town houses from attic to basement, with grand pieces for the reception rooms (including wallpapers and textiles), ‘neat but substantially good’ items for the family rooms, and utilitarian objects for the servants. > > [The Chippendale Society | Thomas Chippendale Sr.](http://thechippendalesociety.co.uk/chippendale-sr/) ---
**Author:** ![APB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8e8cbc/32.png) [@APB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/APB)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2017, 9:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chippendale-furniture/783196/6 "2017-03-28T09:40:35Z")
To add to what **UDS** has said, your friend’s statement only makes sense if they mean that there is no way of distinguishing between works by Chippendale’s own hand and those by his workmen. But so what? No one at the time buying a ‘Chippendale’ from him thought that such a distinction mattered. Anymore than any informed person today buying a ‘Damien Hirst’ or a ‘Jeff Koons’. What however do exist are quite a few ‘Chippendale’ pieces where there is firm documentary evidence, such as letters, invoices or accounts in family archives, proving that those specific pieces were supplied by Chippendale. Such examples, as those at [Harewood](http://harewood.org/explore/art/collection/chippendale/), Nostell Priory or Dumfries House, are the gold standard of Chippendale furniture - their impeccable provenances mean that they are worth more if they ever get sold and they also help the experts identify other, less well-documented examples. ---
**Author:** ![Isilder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/cc9497/32.png) [@Isilder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isilder)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2017, 11:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chippendale-furniture/783196/7 "2017-03-28T11:44:29Z")
> [@APB](#): > > T > What however do exist are quite a few ‘Chippendale’ pieces where there is firm documentary evidence, such as letters, invoices or accounts in family archives, proving that those specific pieces were supplied by Chippendale. I think the point of the receipts was to verify that the entire collection was a single purchase, and not pieces from here and there to make it. The receipts don’t actually prove that any one piece was part of the original purchase, but they do show thats its wrong to say “no one has a collection that big, it must be faked !”. ---
**Author:** ![Bridget\_Burke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7cd45c/32.png) [@Bridget\_Burke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bridget_Burke)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2017, 12:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chippendale-furniture/783196/8 "2017-03-28T12:27:12Z")
Thomas Chippendale also published _[The Gentleman & Cabinet Maker’s Director](https://archive.org/details/gentlemancabine00Chip)_. So “Chippendales” could even be made [in the Colonies](http://webscapes.coe.uh.edu/bayoubend/collect/rooms/chippen3.htm). (And some of them, even if not original, are quite valuable now. ---
**Author:** ![APB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8e8cbc/32.png) [@APB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/APB)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2017, 12:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chippendale-furniture/783196/9 "2017-03-28T12:46:00Z")
> [@Isilder](#): > > I think the point of the receipts was to verify that the entire collection was a single purchase, and not pieces from here and there to make it. > The receipts don’t actually prove that any one piece was part of the original purchase, but they do show thats its wrong to say “no one has a collection that big, it must be faked !”. On the contrary, in some such cases descriptions in the documents are sufficiently detailed to link them to specific pieces. Eighteenth-century invoices could be quite detailed, if only to satisfy the purchaser that what they were paying for was what they had received. This was all the more important with large orders, when the purchaser would want the pieces itemised. ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2017, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chippendale-furniture/783196/10 "2017-03-29T01:01:49Z")
> [@Bridget\_Burke](#): > > Thomas Chippendale also published _[The Gentleman & Cabinet Maker’s Director](https://archive.org/details/gentlemancabine00Chip)_. So “Chippendales” could even be made [in the Colonies](http://webscapes.coe.uh.edu/bayoubend/collect/rooms/chippen3.htm). (And some of them, even if not original, are quite valuable now. No, no. There’s a distinction between pieces made in the Chippendale style, or after a Chippendale pattern, and pieces supplied by Chippendale. ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2017, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chippendale-furniture/783196/11 "2017-03-29T01:41:18Z")
I remember seeing an Antiques Roadshow in which a lady brought a sewing table she found at an antique shop; she recognized the feet as being something important, but didn’t remember what it was. Guy on the Show: Well, this was made by Duncan Phyfe. Lady: Oh, right, that’s a pretty famous company. GotS: Um… no, Duncan Phyfe actually made this table. With his hands. It was worth a _lot_ of money. ---
**Author:** ![Lucas\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lucas_jackson/32/303_2.png) [@Lucas\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucas_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2017, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chippendale-furniture/783196/12 "2017-03-30T13:33:31Z")
Very enlightening. Not that I had ever thought about it too much I guess but I would have assumed a Chippendale chair was made by the man himself. Thanks for the info and the links. ---
**Author:** ![John\_DiFool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_difool/32/19543_2.png) [@John\_DiFool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_DiFool)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2017, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chippendale-furniture/783196/13 "2017-03-30T14:30:15Z")
I thought it was made by either a group of glitzy male dancers, or two chipmunks…