Sale
16809 - Fine Continental Furniture & Works of Art, 17 Jun 2009
New Bond Street
******Please note: Lot 100 - A highly important Grande Armoire by François Linke, Paris, is now on preview in the atrium of our New Bond Street saleroom****** Important Information: All lots sold will only be retained at Bonhams, New Bond Street until 5pm on Wednesday 17th June 2009. Sold lots not collected by then will be removed to Bonhams White City warehouse at: 2 Relay Road, White City, London, W12 7SJ, Tel: +44 (0) 87 0811 3867, Hours of opening 9.30am to 4.30pm. All lots removed on Wednesday 17th June 2009 to Bonhams warehouse will be available for collection from 9.30am on Friday 19th June 2009. For sold lots removed to Bonhams warehouse there will be no storage charges for lots collected between Friday 19th June 2009 and close of business on Friday 3rd July. These lots will be subject to transfer and storage charges if they are not collected within the period outlined above. (Please see catalogue or call the number above for further details of these charges). Transfer and storage charges will commence on Monday 6th July 2009 and will be applicable for each working day.
Lot No: 100
A highly important Grande Armoire by François Linke, Paris, Index number 716
circa 1906-1907
the gilt-bronze mounted satiné, kingwood, mahogany, fruitwood and marquetry vitrine surmounted by a reclining female figure holding jewellery, above three doors with glazed panels, the central lockplate inscribed Meubles d'Art/ F. Linke Paris, the front right angle signed to the top F. Linke, each side with a marquetry cartouche of roses on trellis, on six paw and ball feet each inscribed to the underside Linke, the original mirrors replaced by glazed panels, 312cm wide, 74cm deep, 329cm high (122.5" wide, 29" deep, 129.5" high).
Estimate: £1,000,000 - 1,500,000, €1,100,000 - 1,700,000
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Email: Francois Le Brun/Camille Mestdagh
Tel: +44 (0) 8700 273635
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sale
Email: Francois Le Brun/Camille Mestdagh
Tel: +44 (0) 8700 273635
Footnote:
Index number 716, made between September 1906 and March 1907.
This armoire is part of an important bedroom suite and one of the earliest pieces created by Francois Linke and his atelier alone following his celebrated designer/sculptors’ death, one Leon Messagé, in 1901. Only three examples of this wardrobe were ever made, the first two with three mirror-glazed doors, with one subsequent variation with veneered side doors each with a small vernis Martin panel. The other mirror door example was sold in New York in October 2006 (see below) and the vernis Martin version is in a private collection. Subsequent to the research for the New York example it has now been discovered that there is enough of a difference between the two mirror door cabinets to date them more accurately. The present lot has an elaborately inlaid marquetry drawer in the lower part of the central compartment and records show that only the first fully glazed example had such a drawer, thus the dating of the present is precise, between 5th September 1906 and 1907 when Linke or his clerk writes in pencil ‘fini 19-3’. This first example was ordered from Linke’s stock by the Italian-born Antonio de Devoto, later en-nobled and described in his obituary by Le Figaro as ‘the biggest capitalist of Buenos Aires, the republic of Argentina.' The price of this armoire was initially marked at 60,000 French francs against a cost price of 18,468 francs 50 centimes. However the price quoted to Devoto in 1913, on September 27th, was 85,000 francs, with an additional 70,000 francs for the matching double bed, index number 706 and Linke’s fantasy design of a ‘table verre d’eau’, number 2569 in bois de violette and satiné which was first made for Devoto in 1913 and made again for the King of Egypt at Abdeen Palace. A third in the complete suite was made for the Patino family.
Despite being conceived by Linke without the aide of the late Léon Messagé, the sculptor’s influence can clearly be seen. Linke had bought the rights to Messagé’s designs from his widow although the publication of Messagé’s ‘Cahier des Dessins & Croquis Style Louis XV’ in 1890 had put them in the public domain visually, without ceding his intellectual property. Messagé published a total of thirty-six designs, in six sets of six, ranging from furniture to clocks, fireplaces and silverwork. Linke used some without any alteration in his furniture, for example Planche VI of the third set shows a design that was used virtually without change for the present lot (see Payne, p. 375, pl. 418).
The present lot was exhibited at the Salon du Mobilier in Paris in 1908 and it might be speculated that Devoto was introduced to Linke’s work at this exhibition. The organizing authorities had not intended this exhibition to be used to further the ambitions of interested parties, a somewhat naïve and unrealistic ambition; commentators writing that it became ‘nothing but an immense fair’. The display must have been breathtaking with wide range of Linke furniture, all bar one were new exhibits that had not been exhibited at the 1900 exhibition.
Although some six years had passed before Devoto made this purchase, one of his first from Linke, it certainly was not unusual for items of this expense to be on show in Linke’s showrooms. Either the Faubourg Saint Antoine showrooms which adjoined the workshops or the prestigious suite of rooms Linke took on the north east corner of the Place Vendome housed his creations often for several years awaiting a discerning and wealthy enough buyer. Unusually for buyers of contemporary furniture at this time, Devoto was enlightened enough to try to establish a museum collection of Linke’s innovative work for his palace in Buenos Aires. To do this Devoto had to compete with people such as the Bolivian tin magnate, Simon Iturri Patino who placed a series of large orders with Linke, including an example of the present lot. On Devoto’s death in 1916 some of his outstanding commissions were instead diverted to the impatient Patino, pressing to finish his house on the fashionable Avenue Foch in Paris. As a result Devoto’s widow Elina, had to wait more than thirteen years for Linke to complete her order for Buenos Aires.
Linke’s title for this magnificent armoire reads simply ‘Grande armoire a trois portes au lit 706’. It features in his registre ten items after the accompanying bed as index number 716. In accordance with most of his work, certainly that made for and subsequently to his gold medal-winning stand at the Paris exposition universelle of 1900, the locks and the original keys would bear the same index number, a practice which can be followed through the elaborate process of making such an item of furniture. The cabinet makers’ plans, watercolour designs and marquetry tracings would all bear the same number for clarity, a methodology seemingly unique in any cabinet-making firm. This assiduous attention to detail can be seen in the finished work of Linke’s workshop, which produced some of the highest quality craftsmanship of any world-class cabinet maker earning Linke the accolade of being a leading luminary of the makers of French meubles de luxe in Paris during the Belle Epoque of circa 1890-1914.
The present lot has a scant entry in Linke’s early Blue Daybook, noting that the large figure of Minerva on the cresting, 'une femme couchee' cost 150 francs to cast on August 9, 1906. However the notes are better transcribed in the more substantial and informative green registre. Linke obtained three different estimates from gilders for the mercurial gilding of the bronze mounts. Picard and Gourdiat both quoted 1,950 francs and Maury 1,050 francs, the former winning the work. Although the date for the casting of Minerva is given as 1906, the green registre has an entry date of September 5, 1903. Clearly this was the intended start date, at least for working up the designs or complex plans for the cabinet makers to read and execute but Linke’ burgeoning order book put too much demand on the workshops.
Linke’s brother, Clément made the elaborate locking mechanisms his invoice for February 1907 being 572 francs 50 centimes. The locks on the present lot are the high point of Clément Linke’s art, each lock with two complex shaped steel locking tongues within the brass plate. Five days later Hatard invoiced 57 francs for the beautiful engraving on the lock plates and the magnificent Linke signature. The delicate marquetry was executed by Labbé who had cut most of the marquetry for Linke at the 1900 Paris exposition Universelle. The relevant watercolour designs are preserved in the Linke Archives. The cutting list for the wood of the present lot shows that two hundred and thirty-one different pieces of wood, either in veneers or planks, were needed, excluding the tiny pieces that make up the marquetry side panels and drawer. For example, 33 kilos of bois de violette were used and, remarkably there were forty-three planks of oak. Thus the wood alone cost was 722 francs 20 centimes, marked up to 750 francs in the registre.
A version of this vitrine by Linke, without the marquetry drawer, was sold Sotheby’s New York, ‘A Private Collection’, Volume I, 26th October 2006, lot 123 ($1,584,000).
Literature: Christopher Payne, "François Linke 1855-1946 The Belle Epoque of French Furniture", Antique Collectors’ Club, Woodbridge, 2003, pp. 260, 376 & 442; plates 275, 419 & 521.
Footnote by Christopher Payne. Archive photographs courtesy Christopher Payne/Linke Archives.
For a note on François Linke please see lot 98.
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