Chippendale Drawings, Vol. II

Chippendale Drawings, Vol. II

Thomas Chippendale

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Volume two of two scrapbooks of drawings, containing 112 pages with drawings, most of which were made as preparatory drawings for publication in Thomas Chippendale's Gentleman and Cabinet Maker's Director, first published in London in 1754. A second (unchanged) edition was published in 1755 to accommodate the demand for the book. The third edition was published in 1762 with additional designs as well as some revisions of plates in the first edition. The Museum's albums of drawings contain designs for both editions. 27 drawings in the albums do not relate directly to the Director. The drawings are arranged by subject matter and have been pasted onto deep blue paper folios. This album contains 3 blank pages (or flyleaves), followed by 112 pages with drawings, followed by 7 blank pages (or flyleaves).

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Chippendale Drawings, Vol. IIChippendale Drawings, Vol. IIChippendale Drawings, Vol. IIChippendale Drawings, Vol. IIChippendale Drawings, Vol. II

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.