Robert Manwaring Robert Manwaring Robert Manwaring was an English 18th century furniture designer and cabinet maker. The dates of his birth and death are unknown. He was a contemporary and imitator of Thomas Chippendale, and not the least considerable of his rivals. He prided himself upon work which he described as "genteel", and his speciality was chairs. He manifests the same surprising variations of quality that are noticed in the work of nearly all the English cabinet-makers of the second half of the 18th century, and while his best had an undeniable elegance, his worst was exceedingly bad: squat, ill-proportioned and confusing.
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