ABSTRACT
David Denning is a shadowy author who wrote several influential books on furniture crafts and trades including Fretwork and Marquetry (1896) and Woodcarving for Amateurs (1898). In terms of design, Denning is generous to the anonymous trade designers but harsh in his analysis of amateurs. ‘Many [designers] are not only thoroughly trained artists in wood, but have a knowledge of the conditions under which furniture is made, and must, therefore, be distinguished from those amateur designers who, however keen their general appreciation of art, have not that special knowledge of furniture without which no man can successfully design it’. The retrogressive movement in cabinet-making as an art, already begun in Sheraton’s time, say at the very commencement of the present century, continued with little abatement till well within the memory of those who would feel hurt to be called old men.
