Ref. 1984

F. Linke

Cabinet-maker and Bronze-caster (1855-1946)

« Bureau du Roi »

Signed F. Linke

France
Circa 1890

Marquetry, Gilded bronze

Height : 76,5 cm (30,1 in.) ; Length : 188,5 cm (74,2 in.) ; Depth : 96 cm (37,8 in.)

Large Louis XV style flat desk decorated on all sides, in satinwood veneer and rosewood highlighted by an elegant chiseled and gilded bronze mount. It opens on the belt with three drawers decorated with knots, highlighted with brass thread and framed with molded and leafy bronzes. The sides are centered with a large garland of ribboned laurels. The top, surrounded by a bronze mold, is covered with leather. It rests on four cabriole legs with lion skin-shaped falls and ending with leafy scrolls.

related work

Our flat desk is a variation of the Bureau du Roi, a masterpiece of 18th-century French cabinetmaking that combines the most advanced techniques for mechanisms, marquetry and gilded bronzes, begun around 1760 by the cabinetmaker Jean-François Oeben and completed by Jean-Henri Riesener (1734-1806) and then delivered to Versailles in May 1769 for Louis XV. Transferred to the Garde-Meuble in 1795, it was sent to the Tuileries Palace and then to Saint-Cloud, then deposited at the Louvre Museum in 1870. Since 1957, it has been on deposit at the Château de Versailles, in the King’s corner cabinet (inventory number OA 5444).

In 1786, a bureau plat made by the cabinetmaker Guillaume Beneman, the sculptor Jean Hauré, and the bronze makers Martin and Thomire, was delivered to Versailles to go with the Bureau du Roi by Oeben. Unlike the latter, which remained in France, and on which the royal monogram had been replaced by medallions in blue and white Sèvres biscuit in the manner of Wedgwood, the Beneman bureau preserved in the Rothschild collections at Waddesdon Manor in England (inv. 2575) has retained the royal cypher, two intertwined Ls. Present in the corner cabinet in 1792, it was sold in 1794 to citizen Trousset with the chest of drawers from the King’s bedroom and its two corner tables (currently preserved at Windsor Castle), then acquired by Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild.

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”.

Born in Germany, Jean-Henri Riesener (1734-1806) came to Paris around 1755 to complete his training and entered the workshop of Jean-François Oeben, himself a German immigrant. On his death in 1763, he took over the management of the workshop and married his widow, sister of the cabinet-maker Roger Vandercruse. As long as Riesener did not have his own maîtrise, he used the stamp of J.-F. Oeben. Received maître in1768, he was appointed « ébéniste ordinaire du roi » in 1774 and, during the years 1769 to 1784, provided the Court and the royal family with sumptuous furniture in the neo-classical style. He is considered one of the best representatives of the Transition style and ended in 1769 the famous cylinder secretary of Louis XV, or “Bureau du Roi”, started by Oeben nine years earlier.

Jean-François Oeben (1721 – 1763) is a cabinet-maker, born in Rhenany and arrived about 1740 in Paris. He was apprenticed from 1751 to 1754 to the youngest of André-Charles Boulle’s sons: Charles-Joseph Boulle. In 1754, he was appointed ébéniste du roi and obtained a workshop in the Manufacture des Gobelins, and later at the Arsenal in 1756. King Louis XV and Madame de Pompadour were his most important clients. Designer, cabinet-maker, inlayer and mechanic, he invented the roll-top desk of which the most famous example is Le bureau du roi Louis XV. His work evolved from the Louis XV style to the “greek” style at the beginning of the neo-classic period. He was the master of many artists, such as François Leleu and Jean-Henri Riesener.