biography
| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (1768–1854)
|
| biography:
| Furniture maker, born in Loch Fannich, Highland, N Scotland, UK. With his family, he emigrated to Albany, NY (c.1783), where he apprenticed to a cabinet-maker. He moved to New York City (1792) and by 1815 his workshops occupied three buildings. A master of design who specialized in mahogany, his early works took their inspiration from English Sheraton and French Directoire furniture, evolving into his own distinctive American Empire style by 1818. Although he derided his work after 1830 as being heavy ‘butcher furniture’, he was the most successful cabinet-maker of his era, leaving the business to his son James when he retired in 1847. |
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