Thomas Shearer Thomas Shearer Thomas Shearer was an 18th-century English furniture designer and cabinet-maker. Shearer was a craftsman and the author of most of the plates in "The Cabinet Maker's London Book of Prices and Designs of Cabinet Work", issued in 1788 "for the London Society of Cabinet Makers." The majority of these plates were republished separately as Designs for Household Furniture. They exhibit their author as a man with an eye at once for simplicity of design and delicacy of proportion. Indeed, some of his pieces possess a dainty and slender elegance which has never been surpassed in the history of
Thomas Chippendale National Gallery. Chippendale furniture is highly valued; a padouk cabinet that came up for auction in 2008 sold for £2,729,250. Chippendale was born the only child of John Chippendale (1690–1768), joiner, and his first wife Mary (née Drake) (1693–1729). He received an elementary education at Prince Henry's Grammar School. The Chippendale family had long been in the wood working trades and so he probably received his basic training from his father, though it is believed that he was also trained by Richard Wood in York, before he moved to London. Wood later ordered eight copies of the "Director". On 19