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                          THE BROCHURE SERIES
                          Chippendale Chairs
                               MAY, 1900


[Illustration: PLATE XXXV      CHIPPENDALE CHAIRS]




                                  THE
                            BROCHURE SERIES
                    OF ARCHITECTURAL ILLUSTRATION.

                      1900.      MAY      No. 5.




                          CHIPPENDALE CHAIRS.


It is only within recent times that movable chairs have become common
and indispensable. Seats of some kind must have been used from the time
when houses were first built, but it is not until the civilization of
the last two or three centuries had transformed the old ways of living
that we begin to find them in common use. Representations of seats are
found in the sculptures and paintings of Egypt, Greece and Rome, and
all through the middle ages--many of them elaborate and luxurious--but
their use was confined to the noble and wealthy. In church furniture
chairs are familiar throughout the middle ages, but they were usually
fixed parts of the building. The seats of the common people were
probably constructed of rude blocks, or of single planks joined
together with little finish or skill.

In England, even so late as the sixteenth century, chairs as we know
them were of so rare occurrence as to be handed down from generation
to generation, and of such importance as to be frequently mentioned
in wills and deeds. Such chairs were of the rudest forms, ornamented,
however, with embroideries and costly stuffs. In the middle of the
seventeenth century it was customary even at royal banquets for all
but the king and queen to be seated upon benches without cushions. In
the