Attributed to François Linke A Louis XVI style gilt-bronze mounted mahogany, sycomore and fruitwood marquetry bureau à cylindre, Paris, early 20th century, index number 100

the cylinder opening to a front composition of four small drawers and three filing compartments, the frieze fitted with three drawers.

Payne, Christopher, François Linke 1855-1946 The Belle Epoque of French Furniture, Woodbridge, 2003, p. 475, and p. 488, for the black and white photograph of this model.

D. Alcouffe et al., Furniture Collections in the Louvre, Vol. I, p. 283-285, for an illustration and discussion of the 18th century model, circa 1784, by Jean-Henri Riesener for Marie-Antoinette's apartments in the Château des Tuileries.

Now in the permanent collection of the Musée du Louvre (inv. OA 5226), the original model was made by the celebrated cabinetmaker Jean-Henri Riesener, circa 1784. In 1786, Riesener delivered a suite of unusual furniture inlaid with mother of pearl lozenge-parquetry  with silvered bronze stringing Marie-Antoinette's boudoir at Fontainebleau. The suite included the same model cylinder desk.

The present model was first designed by François Linke circa 1893.  A traditionally popular model, ten cylinder desks appear to have been made. It is not certain how many were made in mahogany as with the present lot, but the model was rarely made with the pair of candlearms flanking the desk. A variation was made for the diamond merchant Elias Meyer for his Grosvenor Square apartment in London, Commande 1237.

François Linke (1855-1946) was undoubtedly the most important Parisian ébéniste of his time. Having served an apprenticeship in his home town of Pankraz, Bohemia, Linke arrived in Paris in 1875 and set up independent workshops at 170, Rue du Faubourg Saint-Antoine in 1881 and later also at 26, Place Vendôme. By the time of the 1900 Paris Exposition Universelle, Linke's worldwide reputation as a master of high individualism and inventiveness was already established and unmatched by his contemporaries.  His success at the 1900 exhibition afforded Linke a high degree of financial stability and allowed him to pursue new markets by exhibiting at subsequent international fairs. Like the inventories of contemporaries such as Beurdeley and Dasson, Linke's oeuvre included copies and adaptations of the distinct styles of eighteenth century important and royal French furniture. However his most extravagant exhibition pieces combined the Louis XV style with the new Art Nouveau style. Linke's frequent collaborator for his designs was the celebrated sculptor Léon Messagé.  In 1904, he was made Officier de L’Iinstruction Publique, and in 1905 he was called to be a member of the Jury of the Liège exhibition.  Following his stands in the St- Louis (U.S.A.) exhibition in 1904 and the Liège exhibition in 1905, Linke was decorated with the highest distinction of France, the Croix de la Légion d’Honneur, on October 11, 1906.