The Cabinet-Maker and Upholsterer's Guide

George Hepplewhite

ISBN 10: 0486221830 / ISBN 13: 9780486221830

Published by Dover Publications Inc., 2012

About this Item

2013 Reprint of 1794 Edition. Full facsimile of the original edition, not reproduced with Optical Recognition Software. The Cabinet Maker and Upholsterers Guide is a famous antiquarian book and remains an important reference book for cabinet makers to this day. Many cabinetmakers and furniture designers still use it as a ready reference for making period furniture or designs inspired by this era. Historians of domestic life or the History of Technology use it for establishing context for their research. The sub title on the original edition is Repository of Designs for Every Article of Household Furniture, in the Newest and Most Approved Taste. In a technical sense the book is only attributed to George Hepplewhite as author since it was published after his death and the original title page bears the name A. Hepplewhite and co. for Alice Hepplewhite, his widow. Very little is known of George Hepplewhite's life, unlike that of the other two great British cabinet makers of the period Thomas Sheraton and Thomas Chippendale. We do have information that suggests Hepplewhite was born in 1727 in Ryton Parish, County Durham, England.

Seller Inventory # CIN0486221830A

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Cabinet-Maker and Upholsterer's Guide
• Publisher: Dover Publications Inc.
• Publication Date: 2012
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0486221830
• ISBN 13: 9780486221830
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition: 3rd Edition
• Condition: Fair

About this title

Synopsis

George Hepplewhite (d. 1786) was the most famous of Chippendale's successors among England's master cabinetmaker-designers. So synonymous with excellence in design and craftsmanship was his name that it has been given to one of the most influential styles of English furniture.
In 1788 Hepplewhite's widow, Alice, issued a catalog of his designs, a magnificent folio of engraved plates representing the prevailing furniture styles, particularly the characteristic "taper-leg Hepplewhite" and the various chair and chair-back styles most often associated with the Hepplewhite school. The Cabinet-Maker and Upholsterer's Guide, second only to Chippendale's Director in importance and thoroughness, was enormously influential, spreading quickly throughout the Continent and the colonies and guiding the style and construction of furniture everywhere. A second edition was issued the following year, and an extensively revised third edition in 1794. Today this classic collection is a very rare and highly valued work.
This present volume is an unaltered and unabridged republication of the enlarged third edition of The Guide. The articles of furniture depicted are extremely varied: chairs, stools, sofas, sideboards, beds, pedestals, cellarets, desks, bookcases, tables, chests of drawers, dressing glasses, wardrobes, brackets, fire-screens, and many other items. The plates contain elegant drawings which reveal the practical and unpretentious craftsmanship that sets the Hepplewhite style apart, along with many special enlargements of accessories such as chair backs, table-tops, bed-pillars, cornices, trims for busts and moldings, and other details.