OLD FURNITURE
66
This shows, of course, that the use of " rich India paper," which for some time had been the fashion of the wealthy, was, because of increased
demand,
and
imitated
supplied
to
the
less
well-to-do.
The
usual eighteenth-century bedsteads of the
Chippendale period were, no doubt, of a much simpler description than anything in Chippendale's
own
probably
book.
Those wondrous creations were
intended
to
attract
the
millionaire
customer of that day, for whom the ordinary simple forms made by Chippendale were not
Many
Chippendale's book are beyond the dreams of avarice, and I do not know that any one of them has been identified as having found an actual customer, or sufficient.
of the bedsteads in
even to have passed the stage of design to that of In his book Chippendale writes of construction.
one of his most flamboyant designs almost with " The Crane, at the top of a touch of humour the Canopy, is the emblem of care and watchfulness, which, I think, is not unbecoming a place The following advertisement which of rest." :
the Morning Post
January 1754 (the year Chippendale published the
I
find
in
edition of his book),
is
for
12, first
interesting as indicating
in ordinary use, and also that the hangings are alluded to as " printed cotton
the bedsteads