Matthias Lock was an English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 18th century furniture

Furniture

Furniture is the mass noun for the movable objects intended to support various human activities such as seating and sleeping in beds, to hold objects at a convenient height for work using horizontal surfaces above the ground, or to store things...

 designer and cabinet-maker. The dates of his birth and death are unknown; but he was a disciple of Thomas Chippendale

Thomas Chippendale

Thomas Chippendale was a London cabinet-maker and furniture designer 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...

, and subsequently of the Adams, and was possibly in partnership with Henry Copeland

Henry Copeland

Henry Copeland was an 18th century English cabinetmaker and furniture designer. In partnership with Mathias Locke during the mid 18th century in London, they produced many furniture designs in the Rococo Furniture Style...

.

During the greater part of his life he belonged to that flamboyant school

Flamboyant

Flamboyant is the name given to a florid style of late Gothic architecture in vogue in France from the 14th to the early 16th century, a version of which spread to Spain and Portugal during the 15th century; the equivalent stylistic period in English architecture is called the Decorated Style, and...

 which derived its inspiration from Louis XV

Louis XV of France

Louis XV was a Bourbon monarch who ruled as King of France and of Navarre from 1 September 1715 until his death. He succeeded his great-grandfather at the age of five, his first cousin Philippe II, Duke of Orléans, served as Regent of the kingdom until Louis's majority in 1723...

 models; but when he fell under the influence of Robert Adam

Robert Adam

Robert Adam was a Scottish neoclassical architect, interior designer and furniture designer. He was the son of William Adam , Scotland's foremost architect of the time, and trained under him...

 he absorbed his manner so completely that it is of ten difficult to distinguish between them, just as it is sometimes easy to confound Locks work with the weaker efforts of Chippendale. Thus from being extravagantly rococo

Rococo

Rococo , also referred to as "Late Baroque", is an 18th-century style which developed as Baroque artists gave up their symmetry and became increasingly ornate, florid, and playful...

 he progressed to a simple ordered classicism. His published designs are not equal to his original drawings, many of which are preserved in the Victoria and Albert Museum

Victoria and Albert Museum

The Victoria and Albert Museum , set in the Brompton district of The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London, England, is the world's largest museum of decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 4.5 million objects...

, South Kensington

South Kensington

South Kensington is a district in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in London. It is a built-up area located 2.4 miles west south-west of Charing Cross....

, while the pieces themselves are often bolder and more solid than is suggested by the authors representations of them. He was a clever craftsman and holds a distinct place among the minor furniture designers of the second half of the 18th century.

Among his works, some of which were issued in conjunction with Copeland, are: A New Drawing Book of Ornaments; A New Book of Ornaments (1768); A New Book of Pier Frames, Ovals, Girandoles, Tables, etc. (1769); and A New Book of Foliage (1769).

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