François Linke
A Very Fine and Rare Near Pair of Louis XV Style Gilt-Bronze Mounted Bois de Violette and Satiné Parquetry Étagère Tables
French, Circa 1900.
Height: 93 cm / 37 inches
Width: 92 cm / 36 inches
Depth: 54 cm / 21 inches
A Very Fine and Rare Near Pair of Louis XV Style Gilt-Bronze Mounted Bois de Violette and Satiné Parquetry Étagère Tables by François Linke.
The detachable twin handled glass tray tops rest on four finely cast mermen corner supports. The kingwood parquetry lower tier has gilt-bronze carrying handles and the friezes are characteristically mounted with a leaf-clasped scallop shell. Each étagère stands on gilt-bronze mounted slender cabriole legs and sabots.
Linke Index No. 610.
The gilt-bronze mounts signed 'F.Linke'.
This model of ètagère table can be found in Linke’s archives as index No. 610. It is a variation on the famous ètagère table shown at the 1900 Paris Exhibition Universelle. The 1900 Exhibition table employed identical mermen supports and leaf-clasped scallop shell to the frieze as the present examples, but included a hipped 'X'-form stretcher.
Linke was to produce a number of different variations of this popular tea table exhibiting examples at both the 1902 and 1905 Salon des Industries du Mobilier in Paris. Christopher Payne illustrates a number of pencil sketches for different interpretations of the original model.
A kingwood and parquetry étagère almost identical to the examples considered here, with figural rather than foliate chutes may be be seen in photographs of Linke’s stand at St. Louis in 1904 (Payne, pl. 290), and again at Liege in 1905. (Payne pl. 197-198).
Literature:
Payne, Christopher: ‘François Linke 1855-1946; The Belle Époque of French Furniture’, Suffolk 2003, p. 94, pl. 105, p.117, pls 131 & 132, p. 143, p. 170, pl. 184, p. 171, pl. 184, p. 175, pl. 190, p. 182, pl. 197, p. 183, pl. 198, p. 187, pl. 203, p. 494.
Meyer, Jonathan: ‘Great Exhibitions’, Antique Collectors club, Woodbridge, 2006, p. 298 - 300.
Denise Ledoux-Lebard, Les Ébénistes du XIX Siècle', pps 439-43.
'Revue Artistique & Industrielle', July-August 1900.
'The Paris Exhibition 1900', ed. D. Coral Thomsen, Art,Journal, 1901, p.341
Paris, Circa 1900.