flattened forms_,
and the disappearance of the elaborate front stretcher on Charles II
chairs.

The coming of mahogany into England and its great popularity there
gives its name to that period when Chippendale, Heppelwhite, Sheraton
and the Adam Brothers were the great creative cabinet-makers. The
entire period is often called CHIPPENDALE, because Chippendale's books
on furniture, written to stimulate trade by arousing good taste and
educating his public, are considered the best of that time. There were
three editions: 1754, 1759, and 1762.

The work was entitled "The Gentleman and Cabinet-maker's Director and
Useful Designs of Household Furniture in the Gothic, Chinese and
Modern Taste" (and there was still more to the title!).

Chippendale's genius lay in taking the best wherever he found it and
blending the whole into a type so graceful, beautiful, perfectly
proportioned, light in weight and appearance, and so singularly suited
to the uses for which it was intended, that it amounted to creation.

The "Chinese Craze" in England was partly due to a book so called,
written by Sir William Chambers, architect, who went to China and not
only studied, but sketched, the furniture, he saw there.

Thomas Sheraton, we are assured, was the most cultivated of this group
of cabinet-makers. The three men made both good and bad styles. The
work of the three men can be distinguished one from the other and,
also, it can be very easily confused. To read up a period helps; but
to really know any type of furniture with certainty, one must become
familiar with its various and varying characteristics.

The houses and furniture designed and made by the Adam brothers were
an epoch in themselves. These creations were the result of the
co-operation of a little band of artists, consisting of Michael Angelo
Pergolesi, who published in 1777, "Designs for Various Ornaments";
Angelica Kauffman and Cipriani, two artist-painters who decorated the
walls, ceilings, woodwork and furniture designed by the Adam brothers;
and another colleague, the great Josiah Wedgwood, whose medallions and
plaques, cameo-like creations in his jasper paste, showed both classic
form and spirit.

The Adam brothers' creations were rare exotics, with no forerunners
and no imitators, like nothing the world had ever seen--yet reflecting
the purest Greek period in line and design.

One of the characteristics of the Mahogany Period was the cabriole
leg, which is, also,