Thomas Chippendale Thomas Chippendale Thomas Chippendale (1718 – 1779) was born in Otley in the West Riding of Yorkshire, England in June 1718. He became a cabinet-maker in London, designing furniture in the mid-Georgian, English Rococo, and Neoclassical styles. In 1754 he published a book of his designs, titled "The Gentleman and Cabinet Maker's Director", upon which success he became renowned. The designs are regarded as reflecting the current British fashion for furniture of that period and are today reproduced globally. He was buried 16 November 1779, according to the records of St Martin-in-the-Fields, in the cemetery since built upon by the
Jonathan Gostelowe Jonathan Gostelowe Jonathan Gostelowe (1744 or 1745, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania - 1795, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) was an 18th-century American cabinetmaker, best remembered for his Philadelphia Chippendale-style furniture. He was the eldest of the four children of George Gostelow (1701-1758), a Swedish-American farmer, and his English-born wife Lydia, who lived in the Passyunk section of what is now South Philadelphia. There is no documentation of where the son learned his trade, although, based on stylistic similarities, it is conjectured that he apprenticed under cabinetmaker George Claypoole, Sr. For much of his career, Gostelowe operated a shop on Church Alley between Second and Third