KIRKHAMFurniture-Making1982.pdf

marquetry was out of fashion but when it was revived in the 1760s it was
again executed by cabinet-makers, the best-known being Pierre Langlois, a
French-trained craftsman 86 . In the 1770s, however, a certain quantity of
ready-made rnarquetry panels and medallions which could be set into furniture
were available to furniture-makers. Whether or not these marquetry pieces
were the work of specialist inlayers or cabinet-makers has been at the centre
of a debate which has occupied the attention of furniture historians for over
87
a decade
It has been shown that Christopher Furlohg, one of the leading
makers of these marquetry pieces, was a cabinet-maker who specialised in
88 . .
inlay . He described himself as both cabinet-maker and inlayer, emphasising
89 .
both his general and his specialised skills . By comparison, his compatriot
Johann Christian Linning, referred to himself as an inlayer in the 1770s,
suggesting that he earned his living by working atthis specialisation 90 . It
is unlikely that many others were able to work only at inlaying in the 1770s but,
in the 1790s, a few masters are recorded as inlayers in the Inland Revenue
91 .
apprenticeship records • The growth of a new division of labour was halted
when marquetry work went out of favour in the early nineteenth century but,
when it was revived about 1825, it was established throughout the London
furniture trade as a craft separate from cabinet-making92.
Those craftsmen who specialised in marquetry in the nineteenth
century were known not only as inlayers but also as marquetry-inlayers,
cabinet-inlayers and marquetry-workers 93 . The skill was difficult to acquire:
it took at least one year of an apprenticeship before a boy could cut marquetry
with any confidence. Once acquired, however, such skills commanded high
wages 94 . There were just over 100 British marquetry-workers in London in
95
1850 • They were, however, swamped by the arrival of emigre workers after
the European revolutions of 1848. By 1850, foreign craftsmen outnumbered the
native marquetry-workers by two to one. Prices fell as the work of the
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