Thomas Shearer

They exhibit their author as a man with an eye at once for simplicity of design and delicacy of proportion; some of his pieces possess a dainty and slender elegance which were a high mark in the history of English furniture.

[2] There can be little doubt that Shearer exercised considerable influence over George Hepplewhite, with whom there is reason to suppose that he was closely associated, while Thomas Sheraton has recorded his admiration for work which has often been attributed to others.

Much of the elegance of Shearer's work is due to his graceful and reticent employment of inlays of satinwood and other foreign woods.

[2] In Shearer's time the sideboard was in process of evolution; previously it had been a table with drawers, the pedestals and knife-boxes being separate pieces.

According to the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, "[h]e was a designer of high merit and real originality, and occupies a distinguished place among the little band of men, often, like himself, ill-educated and obscure of origin, who raised the English cabinet-making of the second half of the 18th century to an illustrious place in artistic history.