Guillaume Beneman
Guillaume Beneman or Benneman (1750 – after 1811) was a prominent Parisian ébéniste, one of several of German extraction, working in the early neoclassical Louis XVI style, which was already fully developed when he arrived in Paris. Beneman arrived in Paris already trained; he was settled in the rue du Faubourg Saint-Antoine when he was received master in 1785 by royal command. He rapidly became the last of the royal cabinet-makers before the French Revolution, working under the direction (and on occasion to the designs) of the sculptor-entrepreneur Jean Hauré, fournisseur de la cour ("supplier to the Court"). In the service of the Garde-Meuble de la Couronne, he delivered works of irreproachable refinement to the royal residences into the first years of the Revolution. A mark of his humble condition and dependence upon the patronage of the Garde-Meuble is the payment to him in 1788 of 1527 livres, to enable him to purchase workshop tools for sixteen craftsmen. An example of Beneman's luxurious earlier manner is the commode (circa 1785) with Italian pietra dura panels in the J. Paul Getty Museum. Attempts at economizing, as bankruptcy loomed for France in the final years of the Ancien Régime, recommended Beneman in