The Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker's Director

Thomas Chippendale

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This third edition of Chippendale's "Director" is considered the most important 18th century collection of English furniture designs. In 1752, the author issued a first version aimed at cabinet-makers containing one hundred and sixty-one engraved illustrations. Here expanded to two hundred, the work caught the interest of patrons as well as craftsmen. In addition to chairs, tables, bed, bookcases, and cabinets, Chippendale added clock cases, pier glasses (mirrors), girendoles (candle holders), picture frames, stove grates, borders for paper hangings and designs for brass handles and escutcheons to adorn furniture. Ranging from French and Venetian Rococo, to Gothic and Chinese, these designs were used to create coordinated interiors in a range of styles.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

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.

Metropolitan Museum of Art