A Fine Gilt-Bronze and Bois Satiné Gueirdon, By François Linke.
Index Number 146.
The quarter-veneered top with bois de bout floral marquetry. The shaped frieze set to four sides with a water-spilling shell mount. The angles with rocaille clasps. The cabriole legs joined by an ‘X’-shaped stretcher centred by a leaf finial.
Signed to the back of water-spilling shell mount with ‘FL’ for François Linke (an impressed mark from the bronze master model).
France, Circa 1900.
Most elegantly designed in the Louis XV rococo style and superbly made, this occasional table is a definitive example of François Linke’s creative power at the height of his fame from the time of his gold medal winning stand at the 1900 Paris Exhibition.
Such gueridons became a mainstay of Linke’s production and all manner of variants were made under Index Numbers ‘63’ and ‘146’. This table however is an especially nice example because its design is characteristic of Linke’s best work and exactly what a collector looks for when buying Linke furniture. This is because the water-spilling scallop shell mount and the rococo corner mounts show the influence of Linke’s design genius, the sculptor Léon Messagé.
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.
Payne, Christopher. François Linke, (1855 – 1946), The Belle Époque of French Furniture, Antique Collectors’ Club, (Woodbridge, UK), 2003.
By appointment only.
