y factory as late
as the 'sixties of the 18th century. Side by side with the Queen Anne or
early Georgian feeling of the first quarter of the 18th century we find
the interlaced splats and various other details which marked the
Chippendale style. By 1727 the elder Chippendale and his son had removed
to London, and at the end of 1749 the younger man--his father was
probably then dead--established himself in Conduit Street, Long Acre,
whence in 1753 he removed to No. 60 St Martin's Lane, which with the
addition of the adjoining three houses remained his factory for the rest
of his life. In 1755 his workshops were burned down; in 1760 he was
elected a member of the Society of Arts; in 1766 his partnership with
James Ranni was dissolved by the latter's death.

It has always been exceedingly difficult to distinguish the work
executed in Chippendale's factory and under his own eye from that of the
many copyists and adapters who throughout the second half of the 18th
century--the golden age of English furniture--plundered remorselessly.
Apart from his published designs, many of which were probably never made
up, we have to depend upon the very few instances in which his original
accounts enable us to earmark work which was unquestionably his. For
Claydon House, the seat of the Verneys in Buckinghamshire, he executed
much decorative work, and the best judges are satisfied that the Chinese
bedroom there was designed by him. At Harewood House, the seat of the
earl of Harewood in Yorkshire, we are on firmer ground. The house was
furnished between 1765 and 1771, and both Robert Adam and Chippendale
were employed upon it. Indeed, there is unmistakable evidence to show
that certain work, so closely characteristic of the Adams that it might
have been assigned to them without hesitation, was actually produced by
Chippendale. This may be another of the many indications that
Chippendale was himself an imitator, or it may be that Adam, as
architect, prescribed designs which Chippendale's cabinetmakers and
carvers executed. Chippendale's bills for this Adam work are still
preserved. Stourhead, the famous house of the Hoares in Wiltshire,
contains much undoubted Chippendale furniture, which may, however, be
the work of Thomas Chippendale III.; at Rowton Castle, Shropshire,
Chippendale's bills as well as his works still exist.

Our other main source of information is _The Gentleman and Cabinet
Maker's Director_, which was published by Thoma