A collection of ornamental designs, applicable to furniture, frames & the decoration of rooms in the style of Louis 14th - on 24 plates, chiefly after Thos. Chippendale.

English Rococo furniture models

[London, John Weale, ca. 1830].

Folio (33x26 cm.). 24 leaves with 24 numbered engraved plates. Green morocco with gilt title on spine.

Large model book for carpenters giving designs for highly rococo tables, mirrors, chimney-pieces, and cartouches. The designs were made by the two leading artists in mid-18th century wood carving and design: Thomas Chippendale and Matthias Lock. This is one of two such model books, the other being a smaller oblong with the name Mathew Lock at the end of the title instead of Chippendale, see Rijksmuseum RP-P-2020-106. The present folio album has six cartouches depicting large Rococo designs against a landscape with classical ruins were probably by Chippendale and the rest by Lock. Their work remained influential in the early 19th century as the summum of good taste. "It is by means of such a charming book of designs as the above that Art taste will be instilled into the minds of the working Artists and Mechanics. It is Books versus the Trade Unions and the Pot-house" (Quartich). The plates were engraved by various artists: François Vivarès, A. Walker and J. Taylor. The work is undated, but based on an inscription in another copy it dates from before 1835: "Thomas Hays, Glasgow, 1835" (Heckscher).

Condition: Slight foxing throughout, some plates more than others, otherwise in very good condition.

Reference: Quartich 1879, 19222-6, p. 1943; Morrison Heckscher, Lock and Copland, a catalogue of the engraved ornament. In: Furniture History, vol. 15 (1979), pp. 1-23; Mary A. Vance, Thomas Chippendale, 1718-1779: A Bibliography. Architecture series, vol. 1398 (1985).