Roentgen father and son.(Report from Europe)(Abraham and David Roentgen)

Abraham Roentgen was born near Cologne, Germany in 1711. He learned cabinetmaking in his father's workshop and, in 1731, traveled in the Netherlands and then to London, where he worked for a time. In 1742, having become a member of the Moravian Brethren, he joined them on a missionary voyage to North America, but after their ship was wrecked off the coast of Ireland he made his way back to Germany, where he established a furniture workshop near Koblenz at Neuwied. There he created outstanding furniture for various German courts, for which he earned a high reputation.

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Abraham's son David, born in 1743, apprenticed in his father's shop and took charge of the manufactory beginning about 1767. Soon afterward he abandoned the rococo style favored by his father for the more modern neoclassical style. He became known particularly for his marquetry inlay and for the clever use of secret drawers that could only be opened by hidden catches. In 1779 he was appointed cabinetmaker to Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette of France. When the Revolution in 1789 put an end to that lucrative work, he returned to Neuwied, where he devoted the rest of his life to the Moravians. His pupils carried on the Roentgen traditions elsewhere in Germany.

To mark the bicentenary of David's death, an exhibition called Precision ...