Tables — The Collector: New York
Jean-Pierre Latz was one of the handful of truly outstanding cabinetmakers (ébénistes) working in Paris in the mid-18th century. Like several of his peers in the French capital, he was of German origin. His furniture is in a fully developed rococo style, employing boldly sculptural gilt-bronze mounts complementing marquetry motifs of flowers and leafy sprays, in figured tropical veneers like tulipwood, amarante, purpleheart and rosewood, often featuring the distinctive end-grain cuts.
Thomas Chippendale was a cabinet-maker in London, designing furniture in the mid-Georgian, English Rococo, and Neoclassical styles. In 1754 he published a book of his designs in a trade catalogue titled The Gentleman and Cabinet Maker's Director — the most important collection of furniture designs published in England to that point which created a mass market for furniture—upon which success he became renowned. According to the Victoria and Albert Museum, «so influential were his designs, in Britain and throughout Europe and America, that "Chippendale" became a shorthand description for any furniture similar to his Director designs».
