Guillaume Beneman or Benneman (1750 - after 1811^[1]) was a prominent Parisian ébéniste, one of several of German extraction,^[2] working in the early neoclassical Louis XVI style, which was already fully developed when he arrived in Paris. Beneman was received master in 1785 by royal command^[3] and rapidly became the last of the royal cabinet-makers before the French Revolution, working under the direction (and perhaps to the designs) of the sculptor-entrepreneur Jean Hauré, fournisseur de la cour ("supplier to the Court").

In the service of the Garde-Meuble de la Couronne^[4] he delivered works of irreproachable refinement to the royal residences into the first years of the Revolution.^[5] A mark of his humble condition and dependence upon the patronage of the Garde-Meuble is the payment to him in 1788 of 1527 livres, to enable him to purchase workshop tools for sixteen craftsmen.^[6]

An example of Beneman's luxurious earlier manner is the commode (circa 1785) with Italian pietra dura panels in the J. Paul Getty Museum.^[7] Attempts at economizing, as bankruptcy loomed for France in the final years of the Ancien Régime, recommended Beneman in preference to the extravagant Jean Henri Riesener; for much of his work he was employed in reconstructing pieces in the royal furnishings^[8] or in supplying additional pieces en suite with existing ones, such as the bureau plat for Louis XVI's Cabinet Intérieur at Versailles,^[9] which meticulously follows the design and decor of the Oeben/Riesener Bureau du Roi,^[10] or the secretaire in the Wrightsman Collection at the Metropolitan Museum^[11] delivered in 1786 by Beneman for Compiègne, where the style was "dictated by certain earlier pieces by Joubert", F.J.B. Watson notes.

It is a characteristic of court arts generally speaking, that design and craftsmanship are collaborative in nature. Beneman collaborated with what Watson has called "a galaxy of talented craftsmen", instancing the ébéniste G. Kemp, the bronziers Forestier, Thomire and Bardin, and the sculptors Boizot and Martin.^[12] To them might be added the ciseleur-doreur Galle.^[13]

Under the Revolution, he continued to produce sober and massive case-pieces that combined the dark tonality of mahogany with delicate gilt-bronze mounts in the Directoire style. He was officially employed in 1792 to remove from sequestered furniture of the emigrés royal cyphers in marquetry and gilt-bronze mounts, as "emblems of feudality".

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