Chippendale at Harewood House. (Books about Antiques).(Brief Article)

Hollywood stars, guided through the firmament by their studios, roosted in grand houses that they bought and sold seasonally. They simply had their maids pack their extensive wardrobes and moved out, ashtrays in place, waiting for the next star.

This brings us, improbably to Harewood House in Leeds, England, which was "done" by Thomas Chippendale and after his death in 1779 by his son, also Thomas. The commission was the most lavish Chippendale ever received. It lasted from 1767 to 1797, fueled by the vast inheritance Edwin Lascelles (1713-1795), the first baron of Harewood, received on the death of his father in 1753. Sugar from plantations in Barbados was the source of this wealth, which Lascelles lavished on his house with limitless prodigality.

Like an early Mark Hampton, the Chippendales supplied not only furniture but all the fittings, including looking glasses, carpets, curtains and cornices, and wallpapers for the state rooms, private apartments, guest rooms, billiard and coffee rooms, basement, and servants' quarters. The house itself was a worthy vessel, for there too Lascelles did not stint It was begun in 1759 to the designs of John Care of York and the Scottish architect Robert Adam, fresh from Italy.

What this magnificent set piece looked like at the end of the eighteenth century may only be conjectured, for in the 1840s Henry Lascelles, the third earl of Harewood, commissioned the architect Sir Charles Barry to modernize the house, and later generations have followed suit. The slim volume entitled The Art of Thomas Chippendale Master Furniture Maker, published on the occasion of an exhibition at Harewood in 2000, makes a concerted effort to bring the Chippendale interior to life. It includes a catalogue of the objects on view, both from the house and on loan; and the 1795 inventory of the house. There is a most interesting essay about Chippendale not only as a designer of furniture but as a man who would turn his hand to almost anything related to human shelter. The authors comment: "He offered a complete house furnishing service, undertook repairs, removals, hired out furniture, compiled inventories and was even prepared to direct and furnish funerals for respected customers."

The introduction, by the present earl of Harewood, George Henry Hubert Lascelles, is entitled "Living with Chippendale." In it he recalls an early attempt to refurbish hail chairs that were "covered in what we used to call 'estate paint' (thick brown stuff which looked as if it was designed to withstand the weather)." They began to strip the paint, and the first chair was a great success-all beech wood. However, the second "had arms of two different colours and a seat of a third," so the chairs ...