SHERATON, THOMAS (c. 1751-1806), next to Chippen dale the most famous English furniture-designer and cabinet maker, was born in humble circumstances at Stockton-on-Tees and died at 8, Broad Street, Golden Square, on Oct. 22, 1806. He picked up drawing and geometry and appears to have been appren ticed to a cabinet-maker. Of his career as a maker and designer of furniture nothing is known until he is first heard of in London in I790, to which he came probably while still a young man. It is not known to what extent, if at all, he worked with his own hands, or whether he confined himself to designing furniture. Such evidence as there is points to artistic, rather than mechanical work, after he began to write, and it is certain that he gave drawing lessons. The remarkable series of volumes of designs for furniture which he published during the last sixteen years of his life, and upon which his fame depends, were not a commercial success. He was a great artistic genius who lived in chronic poverty.
His first book on furniture was published in 1791 with the title of The Cabinet-Maker and Upholsterer's Drawing Book. It was issued in parts by T. Bensley, of Bolt Court, Fleet Street; there was a second edition in 1793 and a third in 1802. The designs in the book are exceedingly varied and unequal, ranging from pieces of perfect proportion and the most pleasing simplicity to efforts ruined by too abundant ornament. Some of the chair backs, delightful in their grace and delicacy, show the influence of Hepplewhite and Adam—it has been suggested that he collabo rated with the Adams. Sheraton, like his predecessors, made exten sive use not so much perhaps of the works of other men as of the artistic ideas underlying them which were more or less common to the taste of the time. His slender forms and sweeping curves were, however, his own inspiration, and his extensive use of satin wood differentiated his furniture from most of that which had preceded it.
Sheraton's books, like those of the other great cabinet-makers of the second half of the 18th century, were intended for the practical use of the trade, although it is reasonable to suppose that he obtained orders by the publication of his books and employed other cabinet-makers to manufacture the work. Of his own actual manufacture only one piece is known with certainty— a glass-fronted book-case, of somewhat frigid charm, stamped "T.S." on the inside of one of the drawers. It lacks the swan necked pediment so closely associated with his style. The Drawing Book was followed in 1802 by The Cabinet Dictionary, con, taming an Explanation of all the Terms used in the Cabinet, Chair and Upholstery branches, containing a display of useful articles of furniture, illustrated with eighty-eight copperplate engravings.
The text in alphabetical form, has a supplement with articles on drawing and painting, and a list of "most of the master-cabinet makers, upholsterers, and chair makers," 252 in number, then living in and around London. Some of the designs show the ten dency to the tortured and the bizarre which disfigured so much of Sheraton's later work. This debased taste reached its culmina tion in The Cabinet Maker, Upholsterer and General Artists' Encyclopedia, the publication of which began in 1804. It was to consist of 125 numbers, but when the author died only a few had been issued.
Many charming little work-tables bear Sheraton's attribution, and he designed many beautiful sideboards and bookcases. Shera ton's ingenuity had led him to devise many of the ingenious pieces of combination or "harlequin" furniture which the later 18th century loved. Thus a library table would conceal a step-ladder, a dressing table would be also a washstand and an escritoire looking-glasses would enclose dressing-cases, writing-tables or work-tables. But his most astonishing fancy was an ottoman with "heating urns" beneath, "that the seat may be kept in a proper temperature in cold weather." Sheraton's genius was less sane and less balanced than that of Chippendale, for despite his excursions into the Chinese and Louis Quinze manners, Chippendale always produced an impression of English work. Sheraton's adaptability, his readiness to receive foreign impressions, the lightness of his forms and the grace of his conceptions had about them a touch of the exotic which was heightened by his lavish employment of satin-wood and other beautifully grained woods susceptible of a high polish. The severe and balanced forms, the delicate inlay, the occasional slight carv ing in low relief, the painted enrichments, the variety of the backs and legs of his chairs produce an impression of lightness and grace that has never been surpassed ; whether he designed a little knife-case or the body of a long clock, harmony, proportion and a delicate fancy were ever present. "Sheraton," like "Chip pendale," has come to indicate a style rather than a personal at tribution. Unfortunately his later extravagant creations in the Empire style had much to do with the development of a fashion of English Empire which finally ruined British furniture design.
See Gentleman's Magazine (1806) , II., 1082 ; also "Memoir of Adam Black," in Magazine of Art (1883), p. 19o.