Object History
This table is known as the Fontainebleau model because its antecedent was found in the third salon of the sovereign prince’s apartment at the Château de Fontainebleau where it recorded in an inventory 1810 as ‘un gueridon en bois de racine d’iff, le quart de rond à feuilles d’ornements et à palmettes supporté par 4 cariatides en bronzes, une parties des dorures au mat et reposant sur un plateau orné de bronzes dorés au mat et un vase de porcelain au millieu’ (J.-P. Samoyault, ‘Meubles entrés sous le Premier Empire. Musée national du Château de Fontainebleau. Catalogue des collections de mobilier’, Paris, 2004, No. 176 ‘Guéridon F 1069C’, p. 248). That table is attributed to the master cabinetmaker Adam Weisweiler and the bronze maker Pierre-Philippe Thomire.
In the late nineteenth century the model is recorded by Théodore Millet and Emmanuel Zwiener. When Millet’s business closed, an auction of his furniture patterns was held in 1905 from which it is recorded François Linke bought the model for this table. Christopher Payne notes that ‘the first one, made by Linke in 1907, has a porcelain vase on the stretcher, simulating porphyry; the others have blue porcelain, all supplied by Samson, the Parisian manufacturer’ (C. Payne. ‘François Linke, (1855 – 1946), The Belle Époque of French Furniture, Antique Collectors’ Club, (Woodbridge, UK), 2003, pl. 228, p. 208.
