Chippendale's early career remains a mystery. Born in 1718 at Otley in West Yorkshire, England, son of carpenter John Chippendale, and served his apprenticeship there. He had a great head for business and as a social climber and self-publicist, he realized the importance of public relations and advertising. In spite of his membership of the Society of Arts and his fashionable wedding at St. George's Chapel, Society never accepted him, except in his trade and professional capacity.

Chippendale created his Director as a catalogue from which his wealthy patrons could choose particular elements for their furniture, which would then be custom made for them in his workshop. It contained 161 plates, reflecting many elements of the Rococo, Chinese, Gothic and Neoclassical styles.

Publication of the Director clearly had a stimulating effect on Chippendale’s career since all his known commissions date from after its publication. However, the Chippendale style didn’t remain within the confines of the Chippendale workshops very long. So popular were the designs with the wealthy class that soon other furniture makers were using Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker’s Director as a pattern book for their shops, too.

In 1754, the same year as the publication of his Director, Chippendale moved to spacious premises in the fashionable paved thoroughfare of St. Martin’s Lane which his firm occupied for the next 60 years. He then formed a partnership with James Rannie, a Scottish merchant, who injected capital into the business. They employed between 40 and 50 artisans. And while the notes in his Director showed Chippendale possessed a sound practical knowledge of timbers and craftsmanship, he most likely, at this stage in his career, would have been responsible for design and management, instead of working at the bench.

A versatile man, he was willing to design and supply wallpapers, carpets, fire grates, decorative ormolu, chimney pieces, even complete room schemes, in addition to furniture. As well as equipping State Apartments with luxurious ensembles, his firm regularly supplied routine articles for the servants’ rooms and domestic offices. 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.

While cabinetmakers used Cuban, Dominican and Honduran mahogany during the latter part of the 18^th Century, the finest was Cuban, a dense, heavy wood with a close grain. When they carved it, minute white flecks would appear in the wood. Honduran mahogany is lighter in weight and color. The mahoganies from the Dominican Republic and Jamaica fell somewhere between Cuban and Honduran in quality. Flame mahogany refers to the character of the grain, obtained by using the first branch or crotch of the tree. Another much sought-after grain was mottled, often referred to as "plum pudding" mahogany.

Nevertheless, in the Chippendale period in America, Connecticut cabinetmakers used cherry more often than mahogany. During the same period, furniture makers in Bermuda used local cedar which had an orangish hue. Throughout America, furniture makers used softwoods like white pine for the main carcase of furniture, but in England, they favored hardwood such as oak.

By mixing and melding the extravagant Rococo style with the Gothic and Chinese styles, Chippendale came up with a hybrid that displaced the more angular Queen Anne style. From the 1760's, the neoclassical work of architect Robert Adam, with whom he worked on several large projects, influenced him greatly.

Block-front furniture–where the center front recedes in a shallow concave curve between slightly convex ends–seems to have been unique to North America. Chippendale never illustrated furniture of this type in his Director. Furniture connoisseurs believe that this style originated the area of Boston, Massachusetts, and assumed a Chippendale character.

Another characteristically American furniture form was the highboy. English cabinetmakers abandoned the chest-on-stand, of the late 17th and early 18^th centuries, for the chest-on-chest where the lower section is supported on low bracket feet. Furniture makers supported the highboy, known back then as a high chest of drawers, on high cabriole legs, the top being surmounted by a swan-neck broken pediment sometimes known in America as a "bonnet." The center of the pediment was usually embellished with a cartouche showing the family’s crest, except in American pieces this is smaller. It was customary to display these elaborately carved pieces in the drawing room, even though they were designed to hold personal belongings. The lowboy, or the lower part of the highboy, was usually elaborately embellished with carving and sometimes stood by itself.

Chippendale chairs often exhibit features of Queen Anne or early Georgian furniture. Often, American Chippendale chairs had Queen Anne back-splats or kidney-shaped seats. American cabinetmakers used doweled through tenon construction, even in sophisticated furniture, up to the late 18th century. In England this feature had died out in all but country furniture by the early 18^th century. Of course, there are exceptions, so that identification is dependent upon more subtle points such as the less extreme line of the American back leg as compared with the English examples which are less vertical. However, in America, cabriole legs tended to be somewhat curlier than in England.

While he based his work upon the general Queen Anne and Georgian characteristics of sober design and thoroughly fine construction, retaining many of the early 18th-century details, Chippendale introduced many other forms. Though collectors identify his name with the extensive variety of chair designs—from geometrical to Chinese, lattice, or sumptuously carved and interlaced forms, his workshop’s output also included desks, mirror frames, hanging bookshelves, settees, china cabinets and bookcases–featuring fretted cornices and latticework glazed doors–and tables with delicately fretted galleries and distinctive cluster-column legs of Gothic inspiration.

Even when a piece can be attributed with certainty to Chippendale's workshop, it’s impossible to say for certain that he worked on the furniture himself. As the Chippendale firm became successful, his workmen, rather than Chippendale himself, carried out more of the work.

Another feature of 18th century Chippendale furniture was its irregularity. Cabinetmakers did all the work on this furniture by hand, thus it won’t match the exact regularity of machine work. According to John Nye, director of the American furniture department at Sotheby’s in New York, when examining a piece of Chippendale furniture to determine its age, collectors should look at the joinery closely. Hand crafted joints will be slightly irregular and may evidence tool marks, too.

Chair makers created detailed and deeply carved legs with precise joints, as well as stretchers, the horizontal rungs between chair legs for their Chippendale-style chairs. Seats were wood, upholstered or caned in either a rectangular or kidney shape.

Chair backs varied with the intended function of the chair. There were upholstered backs, rail backs, ladder backs, rung backs, splat backs, and carved backs. As with the legs, chair makers carved these deeply, with crisp details and often pierced them.

Some of the most remarkable makers of Chippendale furniture were Quakers, for example the Goddards and the Townsends of Newport, Rhode Island Island, and William Savery of Philadelphia, Pennyslvania. In the history of American colonial furniture, the Townsends and the Goddards are truly remarkable for the quality of their work and for the number of them of different generations who made furniture–altogether some 20 individuals from three generations of the Townsends, including Christopher and his sons John and Job and his grandsons Job junior and Edmund were well known, while of the Goddards the best known was John.

Nye also noted that while the market is strong for exceptional items, many Chippendale pieces are undocumented and unsigned, so collectors need to look at form and aesthetic attributes. "Many American cabinetmakers borrowed liberally from Chippendale’s designs, so their pieces weren’t as pure as English ones," he added.