Hepplewhite, George
Hepplewhite, George (d. 1786). Cabinet-maker and furniture designer, Hepplewhite linked the ornate style of Chippendale and the severer lines of Sheraton. He was apprenticed to Robert Gillow of Lancaster, then opened a business in London about 1760. Little of his life is known and none of his furniture survives. No great innovator, more practical than novel, Hepplewhite adapted the designs of others, particularly Robert Adam, to suit both cabinet-maker and customer. His reputation rests with The Cabinet-Maker and Upholsterer's Guide published two years after his death. This catalogue, with 300 illustrations, which Sheraton said had ‘already caught the decline’, aimed to provide designs ‘of every article of household furniture in the newest and most approved taste’. Hepplewhite is most associated with pierced and shield-back chairs often with wheels, lyres, or Prince of Wales feathers, and painted or japanned work of gold on black.
June Cochrane
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Hepplewhite, George
