John Henry Belter was an American cabinet maker and furniture manufacturer in the mid nineteenth century. He immigrated to the United States from Germany in 1833 and is listed in New York City trade directories as a cabinet maker by 1844. In the next nineteen years he rose to prominance and eventually owned a fifty thousand square foot furniture factory in New York City before his death in 1863. Belter worked in the Rococo Revival style, most popular in the United States from the late 1840's until about 1860.

Belter has been called the Chippendale of Victorian furniture, and his work is important for many reasons, including innovative and unique design and very high quality construction. Belter obtained four patents during his career to accomplish his creative furniture making endeavors; a patent for machinery for sawing arabesque chairs in 1847, a patent for bending wood in 1858, a patent for a bedstead design in 1856, and a patent for a bureau design in 1860.