An Analysis of Thomas Chippendale’s 1754 Furniture Designs
Dr Florian Knothe, University of Hong Kong
Erskine Visiting Teaching Fellow, hosted by the Department of Art History and Theory
Tuesday 18 October, 10am – Karl Popper 612, University of Canterbury
To highlight the significance of this cultural transfer and re-interpretation, my paper focuses on one particular and highly important set of prints by Chippendale.
In recent years, several new publications coincide with and honour the 300th anniversary of the birth of Thomas Chippendale (1718–1778), England’s most famous cabinetmaker. His Director—a publication of drawings—provided design sources for his own equipe of craftsmen and that of many other workshops.
Given Chippendale’s interest in and publication of ‘Chinese’ designs, and Britain’s important and continuing cultural exchange with China over the last three centuries, it is worth noting that, overall, little attention is paid to the great master’s drawings of furniture in the Chinese manner – and often for the display of china, meaning Chinese or Asian-inspired porcelain – despite their number and influence during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
Florian Knothe Guest lecture Oct 2022
