Dominique Daguerre was a Parisian marchand-mercier

Marchand-mercier

A marchand-mercier is a French term for a type of entrepreneur working outside the guild system of craftsmen but carefully constrained by the regulations of a corporation under rules codified in 1613.. The reduplicative term literally means a merchant of merchandise, but in the 18th century took...

who was in partnership from 1772 with Simon-Philippe Poirier, an arbiter of taste and the inventor of furniture mounted with Sèvres porcelain plaques; Daguerre assumed Poirier's business at La Couronne d'Or in the Faubourg Saint-Honoré in 1777/78. Daguerre commissioned furniture from ébéniste

Ébéniste

Ébéniste is the French word for a cabinetmaker, whereas in French menuisier denotes a woodcarver or chairmaker. The English equivalent for "ébéniste," "ebonist," is never commonly used. Originally, an ébéniste was one who worked with ebony, a favoured luxury wood for mid-seventeenth century...

s such as Adam Weisweiler

Adam Weisweiler

Adam Weisweiler was a pre-eminent French master cabinetmaker in the Louis XVI period, working in Paris.Weisweiler is said to have been born at Neuwied-am-Rhein and to have received his early training in David Roentgen's workshop. He was in Paris before1777, when he married Barbe Conte, and was...

, Martin Carlin

Martin Carlin

Martin Carlin was a Parisian ébéniste, born at Freiburg, who was received master at Paris in 1766.Carlin worked at first in the shop of Jean-François Oeben, whose sister he married. He set up independently in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, an unfashionable quarter of Paris, where few of his wealthy...

 and Claude-Charles Saunier, and menuisiers like Georges Jacob

Georges Jacob

Georges Jacob was one of the two most prominent Parisian master menuisiers, producing carved, painted and gilded beds and seat furniture and upholstery work for the French royal châteaux, in the early Neoclassical style that is usually associated with Louis Seize.Jacob arrived in Paris in 1754 and...

, for whom he would provide designs, for resale to his clients, in the manner of an interior decorator. A series of watercolours that Daguerre sent to Albert, Duke of Sachsen-Teschen, the brother-in-law of Marie Antoinette

Marie Antoinette

Marie Antoinette ; 2 November 1755 – 16 October 1793) was an Archduchess of Austria and the Queen of France and of Navarre. She was the fifteenth and penultimate child of Holy Roman Empress Maria Theresa and Holy Roman Emperor Francis I....

, who was refurnishing the castle of Laeken near Brussels, are at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Metropolitan Museum of Art is a renowned art museum in New York City. Its permanent collection contains more than two million works, divided into nineteen curatorial departments. The main building, located on the eastern edge of Central Park along Manhattan's Museum Mile, is one of the...

In 1778 Daguerre moved to London, retaining partnership with Martin-Eloi Lignereux, who remained in Paris. Daguerre set up premises in Sloane Street, Chelsea. He was responsible for furnishing interiors at Carlton House

Carlton House

Carlton House was a mansion in London, best known as the town residence of the Prince Regent for several decades from 1783. It faced the south side of Pall Mall, and its gardens abutted St. James's Park in the St James's district of London...

, where his account in 1787 for furniture and furnishings totalled £14,565 13s 6d, and at Brighton Pavilion for George, Prince of Wales

George IV of the United Kingdom

George IV was the King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and also of Hanover from the death of his father, George III, on 29 January 1820 until his own death ten years later...

, 1787-89. Even chimneypieces were imported from Paris, to be adjusted by craftsmen in London, according to surviving bills.

At Carlton House, at Woburn Abbey

Woburn Abbey

Woburn Abbey , near Woburn, Bedfordshire, England, is a country house, the seat of the Duke of Bedford and the location of the Woburn Safari Park.- Pre-20th century :...

, and for Earl Spencer at Althorp

Althorp

Althorp is a country estate of about and a stately home in Northamptonshire, England. It is about north-west of the county town of Northampton. The late Diana, Princess of Wales is buried in the estate.-History:...

 (1790) Daguerre worked in loose collaboration with the architect Henry Holland

Henry Holland (architect)

Henry Holland was an architect to the English nobility. Born in Fulham, London, his father also Henry ran a building firm and he built several of Capability Brown's buildings, although Henry would have learnt a lot from his father about the practicalities of construction it was under Brown that he...

, though he emphasized in one Carlton House bill, "son Altesse Royale Seul m'a donné des orders" Similar sets of mahogany chairs by Georges Jacob, with openwork backs in lozenges and circles, are in the Royal Collection and in the Library, at Woburn, where Holland was executing alterations; they are likely to have been supplied through Daguerre.