In spite of his French name, Martin Carlin was born in Germany and emigrated to Paris to become an *ébéniste* . He settled there with other German and Flemish craftsmen and took employment in the workshop of Jean-François Oeben, whose sister he married. Inventories made after Carlin's death show that the *ébéniste* and his wife lived modestly in a five-room apartment in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine,
