Among the most
celebrated of them was David Roentgen, born either at Neuwied or
Herrenhagen in 1743. In 1772 he succeeded his father, Abraham Roentgen,
in his business at Neuwied am Rhein, which he had founded in 1753, and
from which he retired into the house of the Moravian brethren, where he
lived for twenty years longer. The engraver Wille relates that he came
to his house in Paris in 1774 with letters of recommendation, and that
he put him in touch with designers and sculptors. When Marie Antoinette
became Queen he was appointed "Ebeniste mechanicien" to the Queen. He
was in such good odour with her as to be charged on several occasions to
carry presents to her mother and sisters. Her favour excited the
jealousy of the other joiners, and they contested his right to sell
foreign-made furniture. He got out of this difficulty by being admitted
a member of their corporation on May 24th, 1780. He was so entirely
master of his craft, and increased its resources so much by using exotic
woods, that contemporary opinion thought it difficult to imagine greater
success in the particular direction in which he worked. In 1779 he
showed a table of marquetry, made in a new fashion, which he described
as a mosaic, "in which the shades are neither burnt, nor engraved, nor
darkened with smoke, as one has been obliged to express them until now,"
a return in fact to the earlier Italian method. His designs were many of
them made by Johann Zick of Coblenz, others by Jean Baptiste Le Prince,
chinoiseries, and shepherd games. Under him the later German marqueterie
reached its highest point. His works went all over Europe, from St.
Petersburg to Paris, and replicas were ordered by those who were obliged
to forego the originals. He sold to Catherine of Russia a series of
articles of furniture for 20,000 roubles, and the Empress added a
present of 5000 roubles and a gold snuff-box. The King of Prussia was
his constant protector, and in February, 1792, gave him the title of
Secret Councillor, and in November of the same year named him Royal
Agent on the Lower Rhine. The Revolution ruined him, and he was obliged
in 1796 to close his factory. He abandoned France at this period, and
the Government, considering him as an "Emigre," seized all his effects
in 1793, including the furniture made at Neuwied, then in his stores. He
died at Wiesbaden in 1807. With him these incomplete historical notes
may terminate. Many of the names mentioned are but name