Offered by Tobogan Antiques
Exceptional Louis XVI style cabinet and its companion vitrine made in mahogany veneer and beautifully mounted with chiseled and gilded bronze. They are surmounted by a rectangular top with an egg-and-dart molded edge, above a frieze centered by a laurel-festooned Bacchic mask and scrolling acanthus.
The vitrine and the cabinet open by one door ; the paneled door of the cabinet centered by a ribbon-suspended lyre and foliate pendant.
Both have the angles adorned with tapering female caryatids, above a guilloche. They rest on tapering fluted quiver-form legs joined by a pierced stretcher, surmounted by a flowery urn, and ending on toupie feet.
Biography :
François Linke, born in 1855 in Bohemia (Czechoslovakia), worked as a cabinet-maker in Paris from about 1882 until his death in 1946. In 1900, at the apex of his career, he opened a new shop at the famous Parisian place Vendôme. He specialized in Louis XV and Louis XVI style furniture: all pieces were beautifully mounted with gilt-bronze ornaments, and he received numerous commissions. Later Linke decided to collaborate with the well-known sculptor Léon Messagé and integrated new lines and shapes announcing the “Art Nouveau” style. His great success is definitely the 1900 Universal Exhibition where he was awarded the gold medal for his extraordinary kingwood desk, designed by Messagé. At this occasion, the “Revue artistique et industrielle” commented that “Linke’s stand is the biggest show in the history of art furniture”.
