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François Linke
A Pair Gilt-Bronze Mounted Mahogany Salon Chairs
£24,000
A Pair of Gilt-Bronze Mounted Mahogany Salon Chairs by François Linke, The Design for the Mounts Attributed to Léon Messagé. Signed ‘FL’ to back...
Dimensions
Height: 90 cm (36 in)Width: 45 cm (18 in)
Depth: 60 cm (24 in)
PrintDescription
A Pair of Gilt-Bronze Mounted Mahogany Salon Chairs by François Linke, The Design for the Mounts Attributed to Léon Messagé.
Signed ‘FL’ to back of the bronzes. The underside seat tacking stencilled ’10 22 / 10637 T2’.
Linke index no. 973.
This elegant and sophisticated pair of chairs each have a shaped open cartouche back, the cresting rail is embellished with a gilt-bronze fronded acanthus mount. The shaped stuffed over seat with foliate needlework embroidered cover. The curved apron centred by a foliate cast spray and raised on cabriole legs headed by gilt-bronze clasps and terminating in scrolled sabots.
France, Circa 1900.
These most elegant chairs are recorded in the Linke archives as Index Number 973 and titled ‘Chaise Louis XV’. They are upholstered in what appears to be their original needlepoint cushioned seats. As to be expected of François Linke’s ‘Art Furniture’, they are most delicately proportion but supremely well-made and sturdy. They are designed for use as a side chair or bedroom chair.
This model of chair was made by Linke beginning around the time of his Gold Medal winning stand at the 1900 Paris exhibition. The total cost of production was 247.95 francs per chair and the retail price at the 1900 exhibition was 550 francs for the version with more bronze detailing on the seat rail. The present pair are an example of this best model, being especially attractive because they have an abundance of gilt-bronze mounts.
A watercolour of index no. 973. (Image (courtesy Christopher Payne/Linke Archive).
A watercolour of the model is reproduced in Christopher Payne,. François Linke, (1855 – 1946), The Belle Époque of French Furniture, Antique Collectors’ Club, (Woodbridge, UK), 2003, pl. 163, p. 154.
Date
Circa 1900
Origin
France
Medium
Mahogany and Gilt-Bronze
Signature
Signed ‘FL’ to back of the bronzes. The underside seat tacking stencilled '10 22 / 10637 T2’.
François Linke (1855 – 1946) was the most important Parisian cabinet maker of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and possibly the most sought after cabinet maker of his period.
He was born in 1855 in the small village of Pankraz, in what is now the Czech Republic. Records show that Linke served an apprenticeship with the master cabinetmaker Neumann, then in 1875 at the age of 20 he arrived in Paris where he lived until he died in 1946.
It is known that the fledgling Linke workshops were active in Paris in the Faubourg St. Antoine as early as 1881, and during this time he supplied furniture for other more established makers such as Jansen and Krieger.
The quality of Linke’s craftsmanship was unsurpassed by any of his contemporaries and reached its peak with his spectacular stand at the Paris Exposition Universelle in 1900, where his Grand Bureau took the gold medal. He gambled his fortune and reputation on this stand, exhibiting several breathtaking items of furniture with sculptural mounts of the most exceptional quality and proportion. His gamble worked and his reputation was established to such an extent that Linke continued to be the pre-eminent furniture house in Paris until the Second World War.
As the Art Journal reported in 1900 on Linke’s stand:
‘The work of M. Linke … was an example of what can be done by seeking inspiration amongst the classic examples of Louis XV and XVI without in any great sense copying these great works. M. Linke’s work was original in the true sense of the word, and as such commended itself to the intelligent seeker after the really artistic things of the Exhibition. Wonderful talent was employed in producing the magnificent pieces of furniture displayed….’
The formation of Linke’s distinctive style was made possible by his collaboration with the sculptor Léon Messagé. Together Linke and Messagé designed furniture for Linke’s 1900 exhibition stand, with exuberant allegorical figures cast in high relief, that exemplified Linke’s ability to seamlessly merge the different mediums of wood carving, bronze and marquetry into a dynamic unified whole.
Today Linke is best known for the exceptionally high quality of his work, as well as his individualism and inventiveness. All of his work has the finest, most lavish mounts, very often applied to comparatively simple carcasses. The technical brilliance of his work and the artistic change that it represented were never to be repeated.
Bibliography:
Payne, Christopher. François Linke, (1855 – 1946), The Belle Époque of French Furniture, Antique Collectors’ Club, (Woodbridge, UK), 2003.
Meyer, Jonathan. Great Exhibitions – London, New York, Paris, Philadelphia, 1851-1900, Antique Collectors’ Club, (Woodbridge, UK), 2006; pp. 298 – 300.
Ledoux – Lebard, Denise. Les Ébénistes du XIXe siècle, Les Editions de l’Amateur, (Paris), 1984; pp. 439-43.
Revue Artistique & Industrielle, (Paris), July-August 1900.
Coral Thomsen, D. (ed), The Paris Exhibition 1900, The Art Journal, 1901; p.341.
