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
Ébéniste the industry. From the mid-17th century through the 18th, a notable number of ébénistes of German and Low Countries extraction were pre-eminent among Parisian furniture-makers, as the abbreviated list below suggests. Ébéniste Ébéniste () is the French word for a cabinet-maker. As opposed to "ébéniste", ""menuisier"" denotes a woodcarver or chairmaker in French. The English equivalent for "ébéniste", "ebonist", is not commonly used. Originally, an "ébéniste" was one who worked with ebony, a favoured luxury wood for mid-seventeenth century Parisian cabinets, originating in imitation of elite furniture being made in Antwerp. The word is 17th century in origin. Early Parisian