Which course, Paul Sellers or Peter Sefton

[Jacob]

...
No one is saying country makers were any less skilled, but they simply were not at the cutting edge if innovation....

Chippendale, Sheraton, Hepplewhite all began their innovative careers in the north.
The arts n crafts movement was born as a reaction to the city (Great Exhibition 1851) and was wide spread in Britain and eventually international.
The story is not at all as simple as the popular model. And it's a lot more interesting.

 

[meccarroll]

Found this published by the: VICTORIA & ALBERT MUSEUM OF ART AND DESIGN

It may be reasonable to assume that the information is as accurate as any you will find:

Thomas Chippendale


Thomas Chippendale was born in Otley, Yorkshire, 1718 and died in London in 1779.

Chippendale was an only child, born into a family of Yorkshire carpenters. Details of his early career are unknown but in 1748, aged 30, he moved to London where he set up as a cabinet-maker, married and had a large family.

In 1754 he published The Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker’s Director, a pattern book that was to secure his position as one of the most eminent cabinet-makers of the 18th century. Chippendale’s workshop was on St Martins Lane, the newly fashionable centre of the furniture making trade in London. From there he undertook many large-scale furnishing projects for grand houses throughout Britain.

Breakthrough
In the 18th century there was an increasing demand for luxury goods. Chippendale’s Director provided for this market with 160 engravings of fashionable furniture designs.


Title page of the 1754 edition of The Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker's Director. NAL no. III.RC.N.10
Published by subscription, The Director was an instant success. It was reissued in 1755, and again in 1762 with additional plates in the new Neo-classical style. Subscribers included aristocrats and cabinet-makers. Shrewd publicity brought Chippendale many lucrative commissions. His firm supplied all manner of furnishings and household equipment.

So influential were his designs, in Britain and throughout Europe and America, that ‘Chippendale’ became a shorthand description for any furniture similar to his Director designs.

Design model
Furniture designs had been occasionally published before 1754, but Chippendale’s Director was the first publication on such a large scale. It included designs in the ‘Gothic, Chinese and Modern Taste’ – the last meaning French Rococo style.


A Cabinet-Maker's Office, unknown artist, about 1770, Britain. Museum no. P.1-1961
Not all furniture supplied by Chippendale exactly followed his published designs. Many were simpler pieces for bedrooms and private spaces. Patrons could also combine Director elements to create bespoke commissions. For Dumfries House in 1759 only 12 of the 50 items ordered came from The Director.

Despite his success, Chippendale never received a significant royal commission, unlike some of the other cabinet-makers in St Martin’s Lane.

Business model
Chippendale’s business grew quickly. By 1755 his workforce comprised 40–50 artisans, including cabinet-makers, upholsterers and carvers. Chippendale would not have made furniture himself – or even managed the workshop. His role probably involved making designs, cultivating clients and promoting the business.

Cash flow was a constant problem as clients rarely paid promptly. Chippendale went into partnership with the wealthy Scottish merchant James Rannie and later the accountant Thomas Haig. Their business acumen complemented Chippendale’s entrepreneurial flair. In 1776, Chippendale’s son, also Thomas (1749–1822), took over the firm. Continuing financial difficulties and then Haig’s death led to closure in 1804.


Hope you enjoyed the read, from the Museum. LINK: http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/t ... ippendale/
Mark

 

[woodbrains]

Hello,

The big three all ended up in London to start businesses, I wonder why? Oh yes, the clients, the innovation and the inspiration were all there and not the countryside or provinces.

Arts and crafts movement was originated by city intellectuals. The stuff made was sold almost exclusively in the major towns or to London business men who furnished their country estates with it. The ethos of designer craftsmen in the A & C movement was too difficult to realise and in fact most stuff became factory made and sold by the likes of Liberty of London. In the USA apart from some very marginal communities, as almost all mass produced in the big metropolises.

Cities was were it was at.

Mike.

 

[Jacob]

Hello,

The big three all ended up in London to start businesses, I wonder why? Oh yes, the clients, the innovation and the inspiration were all there and not the countryside or provinces.....

They started and got established in the country. They weren't inspired from London - the opposite - they took their innovations to London.
Arts and Crafts was actually a repudiation of London influence (Great Exhibition 1851) - the opposite of "innovation and inspiration" from London. London attracts talent (it's the money) but doesn't always generate it.

Incidentally - Chippendale and most makers had non of the moralistic zeal of the A&C gents. They would make anything - coffins, painted furniture, ordinary stuff, probably wheel barrows! They were businessmen. All that self-righteous A&C moralising came later.

 

[Bm101]

Economically I've always pictured that time (perhaps at all times) to be one of great divide but perhaps particularly then. You've got your dead poor who were quite literally a step or two away from death and there's graveyards full of unnamed souls to prove it. Of course there would have been graduations of poverty but I always see it as fairly minimal graduations up to any one who had to work for a living. I'm sure there were a class of working people who were relatively well off in general terms but then you had this huge unfathomable leap to the gentry. I wonder if anyone can work out the equivalent cost of a piece of Chippendale furniture in todays prices?
I'm aware I'm over simplifying and I don't want to use terms like middle class etc because it's too easy to make assumptions. My rambling point is, if only 3 % (wild guess!) of the population could afford really fine furniture maybe that's why there is so little around but it's relatively so well preserved. If it's stuck in a house that's been owned by the same family for 9 generations it's not subject to the same challenges of the rest of us now is it? It's got maids to clean it, it's generally in a warm and secure place, the mistress of the house might write an occasional letter from a bureau.... It's not being shunted on to the back of a wagon because you have to move house. Or getting damp and cold in winter because times then were Generally Pretty Drafty. Or being used on regular basis because there's 8 kids in the house and it's a chest of drawers and you have More Pressing Concerns even if you're well off enough to even afford basic furniture.

Just a thought.

 

[bugbear]

Hello,

The big three all ended up in London to start businesses, I wonder why? Oh yes, the clients, the innovation and the inspiration were all there and not the countryside or provinces.....

They started and got established in the country. They weren't inspired from London - the opposite - they took their innovations to London.

You were either in London, or (if you were Good Enough) you moved to London. London was the centre of excellence, the goal.

People outside London copied (or tried to) the excellence that was in London.

BugBear

 

[Jacob]

Hello,

The big three all ended up in London to start businesses, I wonder why? Oh yes, the clients, the innovation and the inspiration were all there and not the countryside or provinces.....

They started and got established in the country. They weren't inspired from London - the opposite - they took their innovations to London.

You were either in London, or (if you were Good Enough) you moved to London. London was the centre of excellence, the goal.

People outside London copied (or tried to) the excellence that was in London.

BugBear

There were very rich traditions alive and well in the rest of Britain which were nothing to do with London. It's a pity that so many are blind to this they don't know what they are missing!
The Great Exhibition 1851 was a display of "London excellence" so gross that it was repudiated by designer/makers of the time and gave rise to the Arts &Crafts movement. The building itself (Crystal Palace) was designed by a Derbyshire gardener (Paxton) who had developed the design/technology at Chatsworth with no influence from London at all.
These were two highly influential pillars of modernism and were both a reaction against London conservatism and commercialism.
Art Nouveaux arrived in Scotland before London (Rennie Macintosh), and so on. Scotland had close historical links with France from a long way back.
The other great ports had cultural links with Europe and the rest of the world, independently of London.

Times change. It's odd that Arts n Crafts has degenerated to such an extent that fussily overworked dovetails are regarded as it's greatest legacy - the modern sine qua non of excellence! :lol:

 

[bugbear]

People outside London copied (or tried to) the excellence that was in London.

BugBear

There were very rich traditions alive and well in the rest of Britain which were nothing to do with London. It's a pity that so many are blind to this they don't know what they are missing!
The Great Exhibition 1851 was a display of "London excellence" so gross that it was repudiated by designer/makers of the time and gave rise to the Arts &Crafts movement. The building itself (Crystal Palace) was designed by a Derbyshire gardener (Paxton) who had developed the design/technology at Chatsworth with no influence from London at all.
These were two highly influential pillars of modernism and were both a reaction against London conservatism and commercialism.
Art Nouveaux arrived in Scotland before London (Rennie Macintosh), and so on. Scotland had close historical links with France from a long way back.
The other great ports had cultural links with Europe and the rest of the world, independently of London.

Times change. It's odd that Arts n Crafts has degenerated to such an extent that fussily overworked dovetails are regarded as it's greatest legacy - the modern sine qua non of excellence! :lol:

You cite some good exceptions to a general rule. I was talking about woodwork though, so Paxton's (wonderful) cast-iron-and-glass work doesn't really advance the discussion. I think concepts like "designer/maker" came a little later than 1851.

BugBear

 

[woodbrains]

Hello,

The countryside did have its traditions, no one is blind to those, but the fact is, little innovation came from the country. As you said 'tradition' i.e. the same working methods from the same ( locally available) materials, perpetuating the same locally developed forms, past down from father to son to son........( Mother to daughter if you include sewing, cooking, etc, ) nothing changed for hundreds of years, except very slowly. It was not and could never be innovation, but slow evolution. It takes money and the desire for something different to prompt innovative ideas and this was only available in the cities. No one would be interested in the country nor have the means to pay for it. Country makers had to move to cities or else they would be making the same old stuff heir granddad did and probably more often repairing it

Didn't Macintosh, and just as likely his wife see Art Nouveau on their trips to .......Paris? I think Paris might just count as a city.

Mike.

Glasgow was not exactly a small backwater, either, plenty of craftsmen and a world class shipping centre.

 

[Jacob]

People outside London copied (or tried to) the excellence that was in London.

BugBear

There were very rich traditions alive and well in the rest of Britain which were nothing to do with London. It's a pity that so many are blind to this they don't know what they are missing!
The Great Exhibition 1851 was a display of "London excellence" so gross that it was repudiated by designer/makers of the time and gave rise to the Arts &Crafts movement. The building itself (Crystal Palace) was designed by a Derbyshire gardener (Paxton) who had developed the design/technology at Chatsworth with no influence from London at all.
These were two highly influential pillars of modernism and were both a reaction against London conservatism and commercialism.
Art Nouveaux arrived in Scotland before London (Rennie Macintosh), and so on. Scotland had close historical links with France from a long way back.
The other great ports had cultural links with Europe and the rest of the world, independently of London.

Times change. It's odd that Arts n Crafts has degenerated to such an extent that fussily overworked dovetails are regarded as it's greatest legacy - the modern sine qua non of excellence! :lol:

You cite some good exceptions to a general rule. I was talking about woodwork though, so Paxton's (wonderful) cast-iron-and-glass work doesn't really advance the discussion. I think concepts like "designer/maker" came a little later than 1851.

BugBear

Cast iron, WOOD and glass, just to be pedantic. Designer/makers kicked off in the paleolithic era as far as I know.

 

[Jacob]

..but the fact is, little innovation came from the country.

Nonsense. Not worthy of comment! You need to get out more "woodbrains" :lol:

Didn't Macintosh, and just as likely his wife see Art Nouveau on their trips to .......Paris? I think Paris might just count as a city.

Mike.

But it wasn't London and Glasgow was ahead of London.

 

[meccarroll]

As someone mentioned Paris (France) the extract below is an example of what was happening in France at the time of Thomas Chippendale.

What is interesting is the mention of furniture making in a much wider sense covering a wider sphere of woodwork than we tend to think of today. And how the craftsmen of the day were seen to be employed under the then Guild system. Coach building was probably a very highly skilled craft at the time but not mentioned much today as a furniture craft.



The Golden Age of French Furniture in the Eighteenth Century

Some of the most beautiful and refined furniture ever made, displaying the highest level of artistic and technical ability, was created in Paris during the eighteenth century. Much admired by an international clientele, it was used to furnish residences all over Europe and also influenced fashions of cabinetmaking outside France.

Furniture-Making Guild (Corporation des Menuisiers)
French furniture of this period was the collaborative effort of various artists and craftsmen who worked according to strictly enforced guild regulations. Established during the Middle Ages, the guild system continued with little change until being dissolved in 1791 during the French Revolution. The Parisian guild to which the furniture makers belonged was called the Corporation des Menuisiers. It had great influence on the education of furniture makers by requiring at least six years of training that led to a high degree of technical specialization and ensured a high standard of work. First an apprentice spent three years or more in the workshop of a master furniture maker, followed by at least as many years as a journeyman. In order to become a master, a journeyman had to prove his competence by making a chef-d’oeuvre, or masterpiece. Once that was successfully completed, he could open his own workshop only if a vacancy existed (the number of masters allowed to practice at one time was strictly controlled by the guild, as was the size of their workshops) and he had paid the necessary fees. The dues were lower for the sons of master cabinetmakers than for people from outside Paris who had no relatives in the guild. From 1743 onward, it became the rule to stamp every piece of furniture that was offered for sale with the maker’s name. An additional stamp, JME (for jurande des menuisiers-ébénistes), would be added once a committee, made up of elected guild members who inspected the workshops four times a year, had approved the quality. Any furniture that failed to meet the required standards of craftsmanship was confiscated.

Menuisiers and ébénistes
The Corporation des Menuisiers was divided into two distinct trades, that of the woodworkers who made paneling (boiserie) for buildings and coaches, and that of the actual furniture makers. The latter can be subdivided into menuisiers (joiners), responsible for the making of solid wood furniture such as console tables, beds, and chairs, and the ébénistes, from the word ébéne (ebony), makers of veneered case pieces. Most of the menuisiers were French born, often members of well-known dynasties of chairmakers, and were located in or near the rue de Cléry in Paris. By contrast, a large number of Parisian ébénistes were foreign born, many of whom worked in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine. Although not forbidden, it was rare to combine the professions of a menuisier and an ébéniste.

In addition, there were two other groups of furniture makers active in Paris, working outside the framework of the guild. The so-called royal cabinetmakers, who were given special privileges and workshops either at the Louvre palace, at the Manufacture Royale des Meubles de la Couronne at the Gobelins, or in other buildings owned by the crown. Royal cabinetmakers were free from guild regulations. The second group consisted of the so-called artisans libres, or independent craftsmen, many of them foreigners who sought refuge in certain “free” districts of Paris outside the guild’s jurisdiction.

Daniëlle O. Kisluk-Grosheide
Department of European Sculpture and Decorative Arts, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

October 2003

THE LINK: http://metmuseum.org/toah/hd/ffurn/hd_ffurn.htm

Mark

 

[OM99]

back slightly more on topic Paul Sellers reduced his price for his talks to £30

Oli

 

[Jacob]

Yes the scope of wood working was huge. It's easy to forget - even when I worra lad railway coaches and wagons were largely timber and we still had horse drawn delivery vehicles made of wood, though wooden wheels were antique even then. Motor vehicles had wooden frames. Farm machinery like balers and threshers, factory plant like silos, were timber.
It's very odd that the fussy dovetail brigade seem to think they are/were top of the trade but they were (and still are) a tiny fraction of what is being made.

 

[NickN]

back slightly more on topic Paul Sellers reduced his price for his talks to £30

Oli

Interesting. Still, with 170 miles of driving involved, not worth doing for just a two hour talk. £30 today got me a 300/600/1200 watt oil filled radiator for my freshly insulated shed, plus a protractor spirit level at Lidl, imho probably a better use of the money.

 

[iNewbie]

Aldi were out of their deluxe stollen. I was well pithed.

 

[OM99]

back slightly more on topic Paul Sellers reduced his price for his talks to £30

Oli

Interesting. Still, with 170 miles of driving involved, not worth doing for just a two hour talk. £30 today got me a 300/600/1200 watt oil filled radiator for my freshly insulated shed, plus a protractor spirit level at Lidl, imho probably a better use of the money.

Never said it was good value just stating that he reduced his price, but still a bit steep for 2 hours talk imo.

Olivier

 

[NickN]

And I didn't think that you had suggested it was good value either, so no criticism intended. Just a statement that I still think it's not worth it, too.

 

[El Barto]

With respect fellas, taking the driving/distance out of the equation, £30 for a two hour talk seems pretty reasonable to me. Maybe you'll come away with some new insight, maybe not, but it seems the price you believe a highly skilled and respected woodworker's time is worth is unrealistic. And that goes for anyone of that calibre, not just Paul Sellers. My two cents anyway.

 

[MatthewRedStars]

£30 seems fine. In line with most pass times for two hours entertainment. Football, bigger gigs, theatre etc