Background
David Roentgen was born in 1743 in Herenhag, Germany. He was eldest son of Abraham Rontgen. In 1753 his father migrated to the Moravian settlement at Neuwied, near Coblenz, where he established a furniture factory.
David Roentgen was born in 1743 in Herenhag, Germany. He was eldest son of Abraham Rontgen. In 1753 his father migrated to the Moravian settlement at Neuwied, near Coblenz, where he established a furniture factory.
He learned his trade in his father's workshop, and succeeded to the paternal business in 1772, when he entered into some kind of partnership with the clock-maker Kintzing. At that time the name of the firm appears already to have been well known, at all events in France; but it is a curious circumstance that although he is always reckoned as one of the little band of foreign cabinetmakers and workers in marquetry who, like Oeben and Riesener, achieved distinction in France during the superb floraison of the Louis Seize style, he never ceased to live at Neuwied, where apparently the whole of his furniture was made, and merely had a shop, or show-room, in Paris. We have, as it happens, a record of his first appearance there.
He married Catharina Dorothea Röntgen.
