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Lot Essay
The ‘green registers’ in François Linke’s archives title this model 'Grande vitrine Louis XV 3 corps bois de violette Panneaux Vernis Martin’, and record that four were made with vernis Martin panels and four with marquetry panels. The present cabinet is not signed and therefore likely predates 1900 when Linke’s name gained greater celebrity with his award winning stand at the Paris Expositon universelle of that year. Only after 1900 does his signature become more prominent. The serpentine shape of the vitrine, a synthesis of the Louis XV pittoresque and Art Nouveau, is distinctive of Linke’s output and the designs of the sculptor ornamentalist Léon Messagé.
The model is thought to have been conceived as early as the 1880s, but is first recorded in Linke’s registers in 1902 for a vernis Martin example, painted by Carl Guilbert on 6th January for a fee of 150 French francs: just over twice the cost of the marquetry versions. The cost price of this version of the cabinet rose from 1,914 francs 75 centimes in 1901 to 2,860 in 1914, the date of the last model made. Another example with vernis Martin panels sold Sotheby’s, New York, 22 April 2010, lot 449 ($74,500).
Research courtesy of Christopher Payne.
The model is thought to have been conceived as early as the 1880s, but is first recorded in Linke’s registers in 1902 for a vernis Martin example, painted by Carl Guilbert on 6th January for a fee of 150 French francs: just over twice the cost of the marquetry versions. The cost price of this version of the cabinet rose from 1,914 francs 75 centimes in 1901 to 2,860 in 1914, the date of the last model made. Another example with vernis Martin panels sold Sotheby’s, New York, 22 April 2010, lot 449 ($74,500).
Research courtesy of Christopher Payne.