SHERATON, THOMAS

born 1751, Stockton-on-Tees, Durham, Eng. died Oct. 22, 1806, Soho, London English cabinetmaker and one of the leading exponents of Neoclassicism who gave his name to a style of furniture characterized by a firm feminine refinement of late Georgian and who became probably the most powerful source of inspiration behind the furniture of the late 18th century. His four-part Cabinet-Maker and Upholsterers' Drawing Book greatly influenced English and American design. Sheraton apparently was apprenticed to a cabinetmaker, being also an inventor, artist, mystic, and religious controversialist. He was first known as a writer on theological subjects, describing himself as a mechanic, one who never had the advantage of collegiate or academical education. He settled in London c. 1790, and his trade card gave his address as Wardour Street, Soho, where he teaches perspective, architecture and ornaments, makes designs for cabinet-makers, sells all kinds of drawing-books. Supporting himself mainly as an author, Sheraton wrote Drawing Book (1791), the first part of which is devoted to somewhat naive, verbose dissertations on perspective, architecture, and geometry; the notes on the plates, however, are much more detailed than in any other comparable publication and reveal sound technical knowledge. The second part, on which his reputation is certainly based, is filled with plates that are admirable in draftsmanship and rarely at fault in form or proportion. In 1803 Sheraton, who had been ordained a Baptist minister in 1800, published his Cabinet Dictionary (with plates), containing An Explanation of All Terms Used in the Cabinet, Chair and Upholstery Branches with Dictionary for Varnishing, Polishing and Gilding. Unfortunately, the selection of terms is arbitrary and eclectic, suggesting that he was increasingly more interested in the eccentric. Of his final project, the Cabinet-Maker, Upholsterer and General Artist's Encyclopaedia, only one volume, covering A to C, appeared in 1805. Some of the designs in this work, venturing well into the Regency style, are markedly unconventional. That he was a fashionable cabinetmaker is legendary, for he was poor, his home of necessity half shop. It cannot be presumed that he was the maker of those examples even closely resembling his plates. The Drawing Book was a trade catalog, the plates of which were reproduced throughout Britain with varying degrees of accuracy. Of his own manufacture, only one piece is known with certaintya glass-front bookcase, stamped T.S. inside one drawer. Although Sheraton undoubtedly borrowed from other cabinetmakers, most of the plates in his early publications are supposedly his own designs. The eccentricity in his later works is as yet scarcely perceptible, but he was gifted with an innate sense of proportion and style. The term Sheraton has been recklessly bestowed upon vast quantities of late 18th-century painted and inlaid satinwood furniture, but, properly understood and used in a generic sense, Sheraton is an appropriate label recognizing a mastermind behind the period. The opinion that his lack of success was caused by his tart, angular, and self-assertive character is hypothetical. At his best, Sheraton had a natural approach to contemporary design: he used wood for its own sake, rather than covering it with such disguises as gilt or modulating it excessively with ormolu mounts; he gave strength to his feminine Neoclassical interpretations; he painstakingly delineated form. At his worst, he proposed preposterous designs to be made by cabinetmakers; what earlier had been a firm yet precious handling of wood could later be as successfully executed in stone; and his discreet use of drapery bursts forth in later designs with overly lavish and affected, almost humorous, theatricality. His writing moved from something of a passive tone begging pardon for his lack of education (A Scriptural Illustration of the Doctrine of Regeneration) to an aggressive tone, revealing displeasure toward rivals, such as George Hepplewhite, or predecessors. His mind breaking, he managed to publish another tract, Discourse on the Character of God as Love, shortly before dying. Facsimile editions of Sheraton's Cabinet-Maker and Upholsterers' Drawing Book and Cabinet Dictionary were issued (1970) by Praeger Publications.