A FIne Louis XVI Style Gilt-Bronze Mounted Mahogany Cabinet-On-Stand

描述

A Louis XVI Style Gilt-Bronze Mounted Mahogany Cabinet-On-Stand, By François Linke, Paris.

The original rectangular fleur de pêcher marble top above a frieze of scrolled acanthus held by birds and centred by a laurel-branch wreathed mask of Bacchus. The door mounted with an elaborate gilt-bronze neoclassical trophy of a harp surrounded by leaves and foliate garlands. The interior with an adjustable shelf. The front angles of the cabinet with figural pilasters with term busts in the style of Adam Weisweiler. The base portion with patera-filled guilloche band around a central drawer. The tapering legs with arrow feather capitals and joined by a loop-stretcher centred by an urn. The legs with stiff-leaf cast sabots.

Index Number 684.

The reverse of the lock stamped ‘CT LINKE / SERRURERIE / PARIS’ and numbered ‘684’.

France, Circa 1890.

Conceived in the Louis XVI Style the design of the cabinet is indebted to Jean-Henri Riesener. Specifically, its inspiration is the jewel cabinet made by Riesener for the Comtesse de Provence in 1787 and today in the British Royal Collection.

Jewel cabinet of the comtesse de Provence, by Jean-Henri Riesener, circa 1787 (© Royal Collection Trust).

That cabinet is much larger but is the clear stylistic antecedent. It shares the foliate swagged harp mount to the doors, caryatid figures to the angles and arrow feather capitals to the legs. Riesener’s cabinet was the inspiration for a smaller cabinet-on-stand shown by Beurdeley at the 1878 Paris Exhibition. In turn, Beurdeley’s cabinet inspired Linke to make the present model.

The cabinet by Beurdeley shown at the 1878 Paris Exhibition (Private Collection).

Accordingly, this lineage makes the present cabinet-on-stand one of Linke’s most complete workings of the Louis XVI Style. Linke adapted the model from Beurdeley and also made it as a companion vitrine with glass sides. A popular model, Christopher Payne notes one such cabinet and companion vitrine were part of Linke’s sizable commission for the Grosvenor Square townhouse of Elias Meyer (see Payne, 2003, p. 247, pl. 262 for a contemporary photograph showing both in situ).

Linke’s Daybook entry for index no. 684 (from his metalwork registre. (Illustrated Payne p. 480). Cabinet, index 684, and companion vitrine, in situ at the Grosvenor Square town house of Linke’s important client Elias Meyer.  (Courtesy Christopher Payne / Linke Archive).

After the latter’s death in 1926, these were re-purchased by Linke and subsequently sold to the King of Egypt towards the end of the same decade for the Queen’s Bedroom at the Ras al-Tin Palace, Alexandria.

A photograph from the Linke archive dating to the 1930s of the Queen’s Bedroom at the Ras al-Tin Palace, Alexandria (Courtesy Christopher Payne / Linke Archive).