Adrian Alan
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An Important Pair of Louis XV Style Gilt Bronze Mounted Kingwood Marble Top Commodes by François Linke ( 1891 )
| Artists: |
FRANCOIS LINKE (1855-1946) |
| Dimensions: | 133.00cm wide 96.00cm high 59.00cm deep (52.36 inches wide 37.80 inches high 23.23 inches deep) |
| Description: |
The serpentine marble tops above conforming bombe cases set with three drawers with scrolling foliate encadrement, the corners mounted with male and female espagnolettes, on splayed legs with shell capped scrolled sabots. Designed circa 1891, these commodes formed part of the furnishings of Linke’s private apartment at the Quai Henri IV, on the right bank of the Seine in Paris. Linke Index Number: 245. Linke Title: Commode Louis XV à trois tiroirs avec marquetery violette The original design for this model of commode started out as an early example of the collaboration between Linke and Leon Message, inspired by a smaller commode of similar spirit as shown in Message's personal sketchbook (illus. C. Payne, Linke, pl. 85). However, the Blue Daybook drawing shows the fully developed commode with the distinctive winged foliate handles that Message favoured. It might be assumed that this device is Message's idea of an amusing play on his own family name, the wings being the attributes of Mercury the messenger. This model of commode was produced in two sizes and in several variations. Besides this parquetry version a bulrush marquetry model and a plain veneered model were offered. The bulrush version is illustrated in: Adrian Alan, Vol V, p.60-61. François Linke was born in Pankratz in Bohemia in 1855 and arrived in Paris at the age of twenty. He died in Paris in 1946. He was the most important Paris cabinet-maker of the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth Century, and possibly the most sought after cabinet maker of this period. The quality of his craftsmanship was unsurpassed and was highlighted by his spectacular stand at the Paris Exhibition Universelle in 1900, where his Grand Bureau took a gold medal. The essential theme of his work was sculptural, in a modernised Louis XV style with a hint of the contemporary 'art nouveau', a large proportion of his work being directly copied from eighteenth century examples. However, he was known for the high quality of his work, which had an individualism and inventiveness not matched by his contemporaries. All of Linke’s work has the finest, most lavish mounts, very often applied to comparatively simple carcasses of quarter veneered kingwood or tulipwood, without the embellishment of too much marquetry. The technical brilliance of his work and the artistic change that it represented, was never to be repeated. |
| Literature: |
Payne, Christopher, ‘François Linke 1855-1946, The Belle Époque of French Furniture’, Woodbridge, 2003, pp. 68-9, pl. 65. Adrian Alan Ltd, ‘Fine English & Continental Furniture & Works of Art’, Vol. V, Cambridge, 2006, p.60 - 61. |
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