[Illustration: One of the Chippendale patterns, dating from about 1750.]

[Illustration: Hepplewhite's characteristic shield-shaped back.]

[Illustration: Thomas Sheraton's rectangular type of chair-back.]

In about 1760 or 1765 he began to use the straight leg for his chairs.
The different shapes of splats will often help in deciding the dates of
their making, and its development is of great interest. The curves shown
in the diagram on page 84 are the merest suggestions of the outline of
the splat, and they were carved most beautifully in many different
designs. Ribbon-back chairs are dated about 1755 and show the adapted
French influence. His Gothic and Chinese designs were made about
1760-1770. Ladder-back chairs nearly always had straight legs, either
plain or with double ogee curve and bead moldings, but there are a few
examples of ladder-back and cabriole legs combined, although these are
very rare. The chair settees of the Dutch time, with backs having the
appearance of chairs side by side, were also made by Chippendale. "Love
seats" were small settees. It was naïvely said that "they were too large
for one and too small for two." A large armchair that shows a decided
difference in the manners of the early eighteenth century and the
present day was called the "drunkard's chair."

[Illustration: DIFFERENT TYPES OF CHAIR SPLATS USED BY CHIPPENDALE.]

When the craze for "Indian work" was at its height, there were many
pieces of old oak and walnut furniture covered with lacquer to bring it
up to the fashionable standard, but their forms were not suitable, and
oak especially, with its coarse grain did not lend itself to the