Artists and Masters

In 1875, Alfred-Emmanuel Beurdeley was first assistant and later successor to his father Louis-Auguste Beurdeley, one of the most important Ébenists of the Second Empire, who specialised in XVIII century furniture. Louis-Auguste was the star of every exhibition and was “most favoured by the royal and imperial families”. Although he produced the same type of artwork as his father, Alfred Beurdeley was also a very well-known art collector and a skilled bronze sculptor. Together with Dasson, Grohé, Sauvresy and Fourdinois, the most famous artists of his time, he took part in the 1878 Universal Exhibition and won the gold medal. Crowned by his fame, he even opens a shop in New York. His participation in the Amsterdam World’s Fair in 1883 brought him great attention and “Alfred Beurdeley, Fabricant de bronzes d’art” was awarded the Ordre National de la Legion d’Honneur, France’s highest official honour. He thus earned the respect of both the government and contemporary art critics. His last presentation took place during the 1889 World’s Fair, when the director of the exhibition wrote in his report: “Mr Beurdeley’s talent is obvious when one looks at his furniture.”

As cabinetmaker to the king, André Charles Boulle was one of the creators of 18th century French cabinetmaking. His reputation is due to the use of the famous Boulle marquetry.

André Charles Boulle was born in 1642. He had a workshop in the galleries of the Louvre in 1672 and was given the title “premier ébéniste du Roi” (First cabinetmaker to the King) based on a recommendation from Colbert to Louis XIV.

His great fame is mainly due to the fact that he was not only a cabinetmaker, but also a painter, sculptor, chaser and architect. He made furniture for the cabinet of the Grand Dauphin at Versailles, and worked for princes of foreign powers, supplying numerous pieces of furniture for royal residences.

Although his role as a pioneer and his great talent are acknowledged, it should be noted that, contrary to popular belief, he is not the creator of the eponymous inlays. The boulle inlays of tortoiseshell and copper originated in Italy and he was neither the first nor the only one to use them. However, he was the one who used them in an extraordinary way and made them so popular.

Boulle introduced an innovation by cutting a copper plate and a tortoiseshell sheet together to obtain two plates that were similar in shape but different in material. This is the decoration “en partie” and “en contrepartie”. Although he is known for his use of inlaid pewter, tortoiseshell, and copper, it should be noted that he also used more classical types of wood such as violet for geometric patterns.

Martin Carlin was a French cabinetmaker with German roots. He received his master craftsman’s certificate in 1766.

He married Marie Catherine Oeben, the sister of Jean-François Oeben, in 1759.

At the request of the dealers Poirier and Daguerre, who sold objets d’art in the Rue Saint-Honoré, Martin Carlin specialised in upmarket production. In his luxury furniture, he often used painted porcelain plates, lacquer plates or mosaics made of hard stones.

He designed his furniture at the request of the social elite of the time: the royal family (Marie-Antoinette, Marie-Joséphine de Savoie Comtesse de Provence, Madame Adélaïde, Madame Victoire for her Bellevue castle), the high aristocracy (Duchess of Mazarin), prominent women (Madame du Barry, the actress Marie-Josèphe Laguerre).

He had three children: Marie-Julie, born in 1769, Simon, born in 1771, and Marie-Caroline, born in 1777. His widow remarried on 31 January 1786, to the cabinetmaker Gaspard Schneider (who was awarded the title of master cabinetmaker in 1786), who took over the workshop and also worked for Daguerre, continuing the work of his predecessor.

Henry Dasson was a French cabinetmaker and bronze caster of the 19th century.

A watchmaker for whom bronze was only an accessory, Henry Dasson trained under Maître Arnoux. He became his workshop manager and continued to expand the importance of bronze. In 1866, he succeeded Drechsler, who was a pupil and himself the successor of Charles Crozatier. The international jury of 1878 awarded Dasson’s work a gold medal; following the Exhibition of Decorative Arts in 1882, he received a repeat gold medal and was made a Knight of the Legion of Honour.

Henry Dasson was one of the most famous cabinetmakers and bronze casters of the second half of the 19th century. He was interested in old masterpieces, especially Louis XVI. His pieces of furniture, luxuriously decorated with bronze, marquetry or lacquer panels, delighted a rich international clientele and are now being rediscovered by 19th century enthusiasts.

He was buried in the Père-Lachaise cemetery in Paris.

Jean-Charles Ellaume was a French cabinetmaker from Paris. In contemporary documents he is often referred to as Allaume. Many pieces of furniture are known to bear his stamp. These are mostly chests of drawers in the Louis XV style.

Jean-Charles Ellaume opened his workshop in the Rue Traversiére, where for over thirty years he produced numerous pieces of high quality furniture, mainly chests of drawers and flat desks, mostly in the Louis XV style, but also in the Transition style and Louis XVI. His production is always meticulous, but lacks a little originality. There are numerous “grave” chests of drawers with visible crosspieces, small chests of drawers with two drawers and Louis XV style desks, all with rose or violet wood veneer framed by rosewood or amaranth. The bronze ornaments are elegant and finely chiselled. Some furniture is decorated with inlays of flowering branches and musical instruments made of stained wood in vine frames.  

Nicolas-Quinibert Foliot was an ebenist from Paris. He was a supplier to the royal Garde-Meuble. In his workshop in the Rue de Cléry, he worked for the castles of Versailles, Fontainebleau and Compiègne.

Nicolas-Quinibert Foliot, who became master in 1729, settled in the Rue de Cléry and succeeded his father as cabinetmaker to the Garde Meuble de la couronne, from which he received considerable commissions. He supplied virtually all the furniture for the palaces of Versailles, Fontainebleau and Compiègne.

His works are sumptuous, such as the canopy of Louis XV’s throne at Versailles or Marie Antoinette’s bed “à la duchesse”. The lines are balanced and elegant, the carvings are numerous, tasteful and fine. He surrounded himself with the best specialists of his time: Guillaume Dupré, Babel or his nephew Toussaint Foliot. His elegantly curved Louis XV-style seating furniture, made of finely carved and gilded wood and framed by mouldings of garlands of leaves with acanthus motifs, heralded the first trends of neoclassicism. On one and the same piece of furniture, he managed to combine two different styles. In addition to his luxurious works, there are also simpler but still elegant pieces of furniture with large shell carvings that were intended for a private clientele. All the furniture he produced is evidence of enormous nobility and exceptional mastery. After his death in 1776, his wife continued his business and remained supplier to the Royal Garde Meuble until 1784.

Pierre Garnier is one of the most important artistic cabinetmakers of his century. His distinction is based on his long life, during which he produced a wide range of works illustrating the successive styles of the 18th century.
A native of Paris, Pierre Garnier, son of the master cabinetmaker François Garnier and Françoise Courant, was admitted to the master school in 1742. As a member of the Jurande of Carpenters and Joiners, his father was elected juror, a post he held until 1744. Unwilling to follow his father, Garnier moved from the Faubourg Saint-Antoine to the Rue Neuve-des-Petits-Champs near the Place Vendôme. A well-known cabinetmaker, his clientele probably consisted of merchants such as Léonard Boudin, but mainly the great empires of the kingdom, to whom he supplied numerous commissions. Among his most regular clients were Louis Georges Erasme, Marshal of France, the Duchess of Mazarin, and the Marquis de Marigny, brother of Madame de Pompadour.

Although Garnier is less known than his colleagues Oeben or Riesener, he is nevertheless one of the greatest patrons and one of the most original masters of the “Greek style”, which today is more widely incorporated into the style of Louis XVI. The first years of his career were marked by the rocaille style, which was fashionable at the time. He was already producing high quality works such as commodes with diamond inlay, rosewood and amaranth, as well as refined secretaries and built-in cabinets with precious wood inlay or lacquer decorations in the taste of China. Garnier’s style is dominated by geometric inlays, lozenges, muntins and variously arranged leaf veneers. These veneers are sometimes divided by very sinuous and strongly interwoven borders. He also created some furniture in the Transition style, but Garnier spent the greatest and most significant part of his career with the advent of Neoclassicism, in which he imposed his style and created very typical works.
This furniture characterizes the “Greek style”, a style with architectural forms and decorations partly influenced by the style of Louis XIV. In addition to this furniture, Garnier also made low bookcases, secretaries with bronze-framed veneers or lacquer finishes, and a series of flat desks.
As evidenced by a text published in the Petites Affiches of 1800, the cabinetmaker’s activity continued after the Revolution until the end of his life.

Thomas Hache was born in Toulouse, began his “Tour de France” as a journeyman carpenter and stopped off in Grenoble, worked for Michel Chevalier, married his daughter in 1699 and took over Chevalier’s workshop after his death.

As Noël Hache’s son, Thomas undertook “a Tour de France” as a journeyman, as his father had done before, as was customary at the time. He stopped in Chambery, where he learned Italian decoration and ornamentation in various colours and arrived in Grenoble in 1695. There he returned as a journeyman to the master carpenter Michel Chevallier. The latter died in 1697. Two years later, Thomas married his daughter and officially took over his father-in-law’s workshop in Place Claveyson in 1720. He obtained the patent as Garde et Ébéniste of the Duke of Orléans, Governor of the Dauphiné, and with the help of his only son Pierre, he made his business flourish and quickly became well known. Unfortunately, in the absence of a stamp, only a few works can be attributed to him with certainty. Thanks to the archives, we know that he supplied the organ case and the wooden panelling of the chapel for the hospital run by the brothers of Mercy. His probable productions also include large, massively shaped chests of drawers in the Louis XIV or Régence style, inlaid with regional woods in the Italian taste he had become acquainted with during his stay in Chambéry.

Étienne-Louis Infroit was a French cabinetmaker and sculptor of the 18th century. He was admitted to the Académie de Saint-Luc as a master sculptor on 14 August 1759. His speciality was picture frames, which he carved with sensitivity and precision. At first he carved baguettes, small, fine frames without a frame. On 12 October 1768, he became a master carpenter and began producing carved frames with frames. He quickly became famous and stamped all his works. His frames varied in shape and combination, tailor-made to fit the works of painters of the time such as Philips Wouwerman. His production of cards with frames is quite short, as he dies in 1774.

The exact date of his master craftsman’s examination, which he probably passed in the years 1715-1720 during the regency, is not known. It is quite possible that the cabinetmaker Pierre Migeon, a cousin of his wife and highly esteemed by Madame de Pompadour, recommended him to the king, for whom he began working in 1748. Ten years later, he succeeded Jean François Oeben as regular cabinetmaker of the Garde-meuble de la Couronne and remained so from 1763 to 1774, after which he was succeeded in his post by Riesener.

At first only occasional, the orders from the crown became more and more numerous and Joubert’s notoriety grew day by day. In 1755 he was chosen to make two magnificent borders for the magnificent medallion that Antoine Goudraux had supplied in 1739 for the King’s cabinet at Versailles.

From 1758, the master became the “ébéniste ordinaire du Garde-meuble de la Couronne”, for whom he had until then only been an occasional supplier, and at the beginning of 1763 Gilles Joubert received the title of “ébéniste du Roi”, to which he was soon able to add the title of elder of his guild.

Since there was no shortage of commissions for the royal houses, Joubert was now forced to subcontract. For this reason, according to the Journal du Garde-Meuble, many of the works he supplied do not bear his stamp, but the stamps of his colleagues who worked under his direction. Joubert was a pure exponent of the Louis XV style, but knew how to evolve with his times. One finds pieces in the Transition style with neoclassical ornamentation. However, he was less able to express himself in the Louis XVI style.

Joubert signed only a very small part of his work. Since the use of the stamp was not yet obligatory during most of his professional life and he was also later exempt from it as the King’s Ebenist, it is very difficult to reconstruct Joubert’s successful and brilliant career. Only the diary of the Garde-Meuble, which is kept in the National Archives, gives an idea of the extent of his work.

He was already of advanced age when the use of stamps was generally introduced in his community, and he showed little willingness to bow to the rule that made them compulsory.

Shortly before his death in 1775, he retired from business at the age of 85.

Charles Krier was a French carpenter or ebenist. He passed his master craftsman’s examination in 1774. After his apprenticeship in the suburb of Saint-Antoine, he settled in the Rue du Bac as a cabinetmaker and dealer. He paid attention to the composition of his works and used unusual types of copper for the garnish.

Jean-Francois Leleu was a master 18th-century ebenist to Madame du Barry, an official mistress of King Louis XV. Leleu trained in Paris alongside the famous Jean-Henri Riesener in the workshop of Jean-Francois Oeben (1721-1763). After Oeben’s death, Leleu took over the workshop and became master in 1764. He continued to produce furniture that was famous for its high quality and elegance, often with floral motifs and diamond parquetry inlays.

Pierre Macret, was “privileged cabinetmaker to King Louis XV”. He set up his workshop in the Rue Saint-Nicolas and ran a parallel furniture and decoration shop in the Rue Saint-Honoré. From 1765 to 1771, he became cabinetmaker-supplier to the Menus Plaisirs du Roy, from whom he received numerous commissions each year for chests of drawers, tric trac tables, secretaries and bedside tables. He also worked for the greatest collectors and the most important dealers of the time. He mainly made Louis XV style furniture, but only a few in the Louis XVI style, having ceased his activity after making his fortune around 1785. His very neat furniture was covered with veneer, often of mahogany, and inlaid with floral, cube or trophy decoration, but his great speciality was the decoration with Chinese or Japanese lacquer panels, which were indifferently placed on his works at his whim. He became best known for his Transition style works, which were clad in lacquered sheet metal in the taste of the Far East. After selling his studio, Macret lived in rue Moreau behind the Quinzes-Vingts Hospice, where his trail can be traced back to 1796.

Jean-René Nadal is the eldest son of the cabinetmaker Jean Nadal and the daughter of his colleague Jean Cresson. He is also the brother of Jean-Michel Nadal, who was himself a cabinetmaker. Nadal took over the workshop in the Rue de Cléry – probably after the death of his father – and decided to set up shop in the same street under the name “Lion d’Argent”.

During his career, he worked mainly for the royal family as well as for the Count of Artois, to whom he supplied numerous sieges.

His works are of high quality, both in Louis XV and Louis XVI style.

Jean-François Oeben was a famous Louis XV ebenist who came from Germany. He worked in the workshop of Charles-Joseph Boulle. His fame was based not only on the perfection of his technique, but above all on the originality of his works. He signed his name with J.F. Œben.

Jean-François Oeben is considered one of the greatest cabinetmakers of the second half of the 18th century, remarkable in many respects: for the quality of his works, their aesthetic value, his talent as a mechanic, which he demonstrated in the production of numerous mechanical pieces of furniture, and finally for his significant role in the development of the neoclassical style. His influence on many of his contemporaries, especially his students and collaborators, was almost limitless.

He was born in Heinsberg, not far from Aachen, the son of François Oeben and Mechtild Peters and the brother of Simon Oeben, who was himself a cabinetmaker. He came to Paris – after a varied education in cabinetmaking, woodcarving, locksmithing or mechanics – where he married Françoise Marguerite Vandercruse, the sister of the famous cabinetmaker, in 1749. He lived at that time in the Grande Rue du Faubourg Saint-Antoine. Two years later, he joined the workshop of Charles Joseph Boulle, who worked and lived in the galleries of the Louvre. At the same time, he begins to work under his own name, supplying dealers such as Lazare Duvaux.

The latter’s most famous customer, the Marquise de Pompadour, later became his protector. The list of debtors received also shows clients such as the Duchesses of Brancas and Lauraguais, the Dukes of Choiseul and Richelieu or the Marshal of Mirepoix. Among the members of the royal family was the Dauphine Marie Josèphe de Saxe.

When Charles-Joseph Boulle died in 1754, Oeben was appointed carpenter and joiner to the King in the Gobelins. They shared a workshop with his brother Simon. His great reputation brings him numerous commissions, which soon make his workshop very cramped. From 1756 he was given larger premises in the Arsenal, where he spent the rest of his career. As a passionate mechanic, the privilege of being allowed to build a forge there was a stroke of luck for Oeben.

His employees included Riesener and Leleu, but also various highly respected craftsmen such as the sculptor Duplessis or the bronze casters Hervieux and Forestier. In 1759, he was awarded a certificate as a supplier to royalty, which was renewed in 1761, allowing him to become a master craftsman at no cost, due to the privilege granted to workers of the crown.

Oeben’s style is undoubtedly marked by his marquetry: Beautiful, with an impeccable technique, they make him one of the greatest masters of the genre. Flowers and leaves in broad bouquets, baskets or stems stand out in precious woods in light tones against a bolder background, usually satin-finished. They are highly decorative, precisely and smoothly drawn, not overloaded, easy to read and skilfully nuanced. They are framed by amaranth tendrils, sinuous in Louis XV style furniture, rectilinear in Transition models or intertwined with Greek. They are surrounded by a double net of ebony and boxwood. More austere and in keeping with the neoclassical spirit, inlays with geometric motifs are also very common. They sometimes coexist with floral compositions, especially on chests of drawers from the transitional period. The networks of intertwined circles are most characteristic of the Ebenist’s personal style.

Rarer, but equally figurative, is a marquetry of four leaves in a grid of sycamore wood, which adorns the exterior and interior of some reading tables. Plain veneers, mainly of satin and mahogany, with horizontal or vertical thread inlays, also decorate transitional-style chests of drawers, cylinder desks and some small pieces of furniture. The bronzes, which are of very good quality, also follow the evolution of styles. The bronzes of the Louis XV style furniture are in the form of long leaves and elongated motifs, far removed from rocaille. Despite his enormous talent, his career ended with his early death when he was ruined less than two years later.

His widow kept his studio and transferred its management to Riesener, who married her in 1767.

Pierre Pillot wrote numerous works, especially seating furniture in a characteristic Louis XV and Louis XVI style, in which one can see the dual influence of Lyon taste and Italian art. According to his advertising card, fragments of which were found on a console belonging to Mr H. Maroger, this manufacturer, located “près le Marché, nr. 106”, sold both cabinetmaking and joinery furniture, such as chests of drawers, Greek tables, Turkish beds, sofas, medallion armchairs, etc. In general, Pillot seating furniture features heavier ornamentation, to which rectangular meanders, acanthus motifs and laurel gates contribute. Many of them are upholstered with wickerwork.

As carpenter of the Garde-meuble de la Couronne, he specialised above all in the maintenance of royal furniture, which explains the rarity of his productions.

Jean-Claude Quervelle obtained his master’s degree in Paris in 1767 and moved to Versailles where he was appointed cabinetmaker to the Garde Meuble de la Couronne, mainly to maintain and repair the royal furniture. However, he did provide some works for the Palace of Versailles and had the privilege of being attached to the king’s private service. In the account books kept by Louis XVI, he is mentioned for veneered furniture, a jewellery box, a walnut table used to place his telescope and a rosewood writing case. His stamp has the typographical peculiarity of being capitalized, as usual, except for the initial q which is reproduced in lower case.

His production, of good quality, was apparently not very important. We can nevertheless mention a very large and spectacular chest of drawers in the Transition style, decorated with fine marquetry representing trophies of Music and floral bouquets and framed with Greek and grid frieze. Quervelle did not make a fortune and on his death, his wife received in 1794 some help from the State, in addition to the small pension paid by the Garde-Meuble.

Riesener was Marie-Antoinette’s favourite cabinetmaker and the undisputed master of Louis XVI furniture. He also completed one of the most fabulous pieces of furniture in the world for Louis XV: the desk for his inner cabinet at Versailles.

A native of Germany, Riesener began his career for the monarchy by completing Louis XV’s cylinder desk in his inner cabinet. Commissioned in 1760 from his father-in-law and master Jean-François Œben, the piece of furniture is exceptional for its novelty, the refined inlay work, the quality of the bronze work and, above all, its ingenious mechanism: the entire desk can be closed with a single turn of the key and opened at the touch of a button! Completed in 1769, the desk was altered by Riesener himself during the Revolution when he was asked to remove the royal symbols. The prestige of the piece of furniture was nevertheless immense and established the reputation of the cabinetmaker once and for all.

From then on, orders from the court flowed incessantly. Riesener was the main supplier to the royal residences for more than ten years. However, his horrendous prices drove away part of his clientele. Marie-Antoinette, however, retained her confidence in him.

David Roentgen was a German cabinetmaker who had a reputation in his day for his unique inlays, secret drawers, and mechanical joints. He was also the “official” mechanical cabinetmaker of a certain Marie Antoinette.

He is often considered the Mozart of the double-bottom or double-opening drawer, and his work opened interesting prospects for many later famous craftsmen.

His reputation was so good that even Goethe mentions David ROENTGEN in one of his works.

David Roentgen had everything a magician needs: a sense of creativity, an edge over his contemporaries by using new techniques that few were using at the time, a sense of distraction, and a sense of staging to spread the word about his creations….

Unfortunately, many pieces by this incredible designer have completely disappeared today. The largest collection of David Roentgen’s furniture is owned by the Ducal House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha and is on display at Callenberg Coburg Castle in northern Bavaria.

Ebenist – master craftsman’s examination on 31 July 1752: Saunier distinguished himself by the very good quality of his stamped works.

Saunier came from a family of cabinetmakers and began his career in the family workshop with his father Jean-Charles in the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Antoine, opposite the Rue Saint-Nicolas. He succeeded him in 1765 and immediately registered his master craftsman’s diplomas – which he had received in 1752 at the age of seventeen. After taking over the factory, his reputation spread very quickly, not only in France but also abroad, such as in London. He worked for the dealer Daguerre, who counted great English collectors such as Lord Spencer among his clients.

While under his father Saunier was involved in the production of furniture with curved forms and rocaille decoration, under his direction his taste changed markedly towards a simpler style inspired by antiquity.

Apart from some Louis XV works, which are of very good quality but lack real originality compared to those of his colleagues, his production is mainly characterised by Transition style furniture and Louis XVI furniture. In each of these categories he created very characteristic types of furniture that are recognisable even without his stamp. While Saunier was not in demand at court or among the greats of the kingdom, he embodied the Parisian enthusiasts’ taste for austerity, sobriety and balanced forms. These qualities of his own thus make him one of the finest ebenists of the reign of Louis XVI. For his furniture, Saunier preferred solid woods inlaid with simple fillets. He used mahogany extensively, followed by rosewood and satinwood, but his veneers consisted mainly of native woods such as lemon tree, which he used in large quantities to emphasise its luminosity.

After the Revolution, he resumed his activity until the end of the century, first in the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Antoine, then in the Rue du Harlay and finally in the Rue Saint-Claude. Some furniture in maple or mahogany, already in the Empire taste, bore his stamp at this time.

French cabinetmaker and woodcarver of the 16th century.

Charles Topino – cabinetmaker – master craftsman’s examination on 4 July 1773: A prolific 18th century cabinetmaker and great creator of fancy furniture, Charles Topino’s fame rests on his rich furniture and his inlay work of utensils.

Charles Topino probably came from Arras and began his career as a freelance worker in Paris. He was the brother of the furniture dealer Jean-Baptiste, known by the pseudonym Lebrund, and the nephew of the painter Topino-Lebrun. A master in 1773, he was appointed to the post of deputy of the Jurande of Joiner-Ebénistes in 1782. Topino was recognised in France and abroad and attracted a large clientele of merchants and cabinetmakers such as Boudin, Migeon and Delorme, as well as French lords such as the Marquis de Graville.

As one of the leading small masters of his century, his production is characterised by very personal works with a high recognition value, which can mainly be attributed to the Transition and Louis XVI styles. The marquetry, decorated with flower vases, writing tablets and various utensils such as cups, teapots, jugs – depicted like still lifes – or even playing cards and books, are the most characteristic elements of his furniture.

They are mostly inspired by the borders of Chinese screens made of Coromandel lacquer, which use the same motifs. Grouped together in an oval, round or square compartment or arranged as a frieze, the decorations are very often seen in profile and their very simple cut requires a small number of pieces of wood that are reworked with a chisel for the details. They are found on small pieces of furniture in the transitional style favoured by Charles Topino, especially on bonheurs-du-lamps and small salon tables. In the case of the Bonheurs-du lamps, he mainly made models in a classic rectangular shape, but also some oval models, which were a novelty in this genre that he particularly loved. The tables, also often oval, with inlays of utilitarian objects, have in most models a drawer in the middle of the belt and two small drawers on the sides that can be turned.

Jacques Upton – cabinetmaker. He received his master craftsman’s certificate in Paris on 6 December 1782. He ran a factory for utilitarian furniture made of local woods in the Rue de Chaillot.

Jean-Baptiste was a cabinetmaker and joiner from Paris. Vassou made a name for himself with a fairly extensive production of handsome furniture, almost all of which dates from the transitional period or the time of Louis XVI.
Jean-Baptiste Vassou began his career in the Rue Saint-Nicolas under the sign “La Tête Noire” and received his master craftsman’s certificate in 1767.
His production is quite extensive. Almost all of his transitional style furniture is made of mahogany and is often very tall in proportion to its width. He uses only satinwood or rosewood veneers and his inlays are bright and decorated with large floral decorations. Neither bronze nor violet wood are to be found in his works. On the whole, unlike many of his colleagues, he left only cheerful and pleasing works. In 1799, Jean-Baptiste Vassou moved his workshop to the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Antoine, where his youngest son Jean-Louis succeeded him.

Henri Wirtz was a carpenter and cabinetmaker in Paris. He was appointed master in 1767 and worked for furniture and buildings in the rue du Sépulcre. He went bankrupt in 1777 and retired to rue de Seine. His production was not very important. The Louis XV and transitional style furniture bearing his stamp is classically made of Chinese lacquer or veneer.

François-Antoine Yon received his master craftsman’s diploma on 26 September 1782. He was still working at the beginning of the Empire..

Pierre Zender, born around 1738 in Mannheim, Germany. He was admitted as a master in 1768. He married Marie Thomas in Lyon on 14 September 1762. The stamp of this Lyon Ebenist was found on a burial chest sold at the Hôtel Drouot in 1987.