[Illustration:  It is interesting to compare the generous curves of the Chippendale sofa with the greater severity of Hepplewhite’s taste..]

In America much of the furniture called Chippendale was not made by Chippendale himself, but was made after his designs and copied from imported pieces by clever cabinet-makers here in the, then, colonies.  The average American of the eighteenth century was a simple and not over rich person of good breeding and refined taste who appreciated the fact that the elaborate furniture of England and France would not be in keeping with life in America, and so either imported the simpler kinds, or demanded that the home cabinet-maker choose good models for his work.  This partly explains why we have so much really good Colonial furniture, and not so much of the elaborately carved and gilded variety.

[Illustration:  A valuable collection of an Adam mirror, a block-front, knee-hole chest of drawers, and a Hepplewhite chair.]

Robert Adam

Robert Adam was the second of the four sons of William Adam, and was born in 1728.  The Adam family was Scotch of good social position.  Robert early showed a talent for drawing.  He was ambitious, and, as old Roman architecture interested him above all other subjects, he decided that he could attain his ideals only by study and travel in Italy.  He returned to England in 1758 after four years of hard work with the results of his labors, the chief treasure being his careful drawings of Diocletian’s villa.  His classical taste was firmly established, and was to be one of the important influences of the eighteenth century.

Robert and James Adam went into partnership and became the most noted architects of their day in England.  The list of their buildings is long and interesting, and much of their architectural and decorative work is still in existence.

To many people it will seem like putting the cart before the horse to say that Robert Adam had in any way influenced the style we call Louis XVI, but it is a plausible theory and certainly an interesting one.  Mr. G. Owen Wheeler in his interesting book on “Old English Furniture” makes a strong case in favor of the Adam Brothers.  Classical taste was well established in England by 1765, before the transition from Louis XV to Louis XVI began, and Robert Adam published his book in parallel columns of French and English, which shows it must have been in some demand in France.  The great influence of the excavations at Pompeii must naturally not be underestimated, as it was far reaching, but with the beautiful Adam style well developed, just across the Channel, it seems probable that it may have had its share in forming French taste.  The foundation being there, the French put their characteristic touch to it and developed a much richer style than that of the Adam Brothers, but the two have so much in common that Louis XVI furniture may be put into an Adam room with perfect fitness, and vice versa.  As the Adams cared only to design furniture some one else had to carry out the designs, and Chippendale was master carver and cabinet-maker under them at Harewood House, Yorkshire, and probably was also in many other instances.