Identifier: practicalbookofp00eber (find matches)
Title: The practical book of period furniture, treating of furniture of the English, American colonial and post-colonial and principal French periods
Year: 1914 (1910s)
Authors: Eberlein, Harold Donaldson McClure, Abbot, 1879-
Subjects: Furniture
Publisher: Philadelphia, London, J.B. Lippincott Company
Contributing Library: Wellesley College Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Wellesley College Library

View Book Page: Book Viewer
About This Book: Catalog Entry
View All Images: All Images From Book
Click here to view book online to see this illustration in context in a browseable online version of this book.

Text Appearing Before Image:
Fig. 1. Examples of Hepplewhite Splat, Oval and Bar Backs. As much alike as Hepplewhite and Sheraton pat-terns are in many respects, one sharp contrast must bedrawn between the styles. Though both men held tostraight structural lines in their designs of cabinet-work, and to a very large extent in chair- and table-work, Hepplewhite is regarded as the exponent of thecurve and Sheraton as the exponent of the straightline. Hepplewhite introduced his curving lines in chairbacks, seat frames, sofas and settees, the serpentinefronts of sideboards and cabinet-work and the shapesof table-tops. How Sheraton, on the contrary, empha-sised the straight line, we shall see in the Sheraton chap-ter. Strange as it may seem in the tracery of the glazed
Text Appearing After Image:
GEORGE HEPPLEWHITE 211 doors of bookcases and cabinets (Key XII, 2) the pref-erence was apparently reversed, for Hepplewhite wasdisposed to use straight lines, while Sheraton turned tograceful curves and incidentally showed what a masterof proportion he was. The same is true of panel shapesin cabinet-work. Sheraton seems to have fallen heir tothe Adam oval and used it to excellent effect, whileHepplewhite, with his strong predilection for curvinglines, kept, in the main, to rectangular panel shapes. To Hepplewhite must be credited the popularisationof the tall French foot (Key XI, 4) for cabinet-work,with its refined proportions and graceful outward curveof both sides and angle. Though both men used squarelegs and round legs in their table and chair designs,the square leg (Key XI, 5) may be considered moretypical of Hepplewhite. In the majority of cases,square or round, and in the designs of both men, legsare tapered. CHAIRS However much Hepplewhite may have been in-debted to Adam in

Note About Images