Bennewitz left Germany to move to Amsterdam, where he started working for Cornelis Leonard Diemont.

He took over the company, together with Adrianus Bonebakker, in 1802, from the by then deceased brothers Jacob and Jan Hendrik Peirolet.

This gift consisted of a 419-piece dinner service, an important part of which can still be admired in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.

Bennewitz’s other sons, Dirk Lodewijk jr., Jacobus and Pieter, who were also all silversmiths, had already died by then.

Much of Bennewitz’s work forms part of the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam’s museum collection.