Object History
This console table is designed in the rococo style of the 1750s. The caryatid angle mounts are after 18th century models by Charles Cressent (1685-1768; P. Kjellberg, Le Mobillier Français Du XVIII Siecle, Paris, 2002, p. 226).
It was produced by François Linke under Index Number 153. It is known that François Linke acquired designs, templates and models for furniture from other makers when they ceased trading. Linke continued to make and adapt these models by other makers. The present table is one such case in point. This model of console table is known to have been made by Mathieu Befort, known as Befort Jeune, who was active from the 1840s to the 1870s. When Befort closed in 1880, Linke would have purchased the master models for this table. For the gilt-bronze mounts he would make his own casts from the models by Befort Jeune, adding his initials ‘FL’, as can been seen to the bronzes on this table.
The rococo design of this table was an inspiration for the sculptor Léon Messagé who collaborated with François Linke to produce legendary Art Nouveau-infused rococo furniture for the Paris 1900 Exposition universelle. The evidence of this inspiration can been seen in a variation of this console table, also by Linke, which features different gilt-bronze mounts showing Messagé’s hand.
The charming figure of the Mandolin player to the stretcher is inspired by the Rococo painting by Jean-Antoine Watteau (1681-1724) ‘Mezzetin’, circa 1718-20, now in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Inv. No.34.138. Mezzetin, a stock comic character of the Italian commedia dell’arte, became an established archetype on the Paris stage, but was an innovative subject for painting in Watteau’s lifetime.
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.
