Françoise Linke was born in Austria in 1855 and died in Paris in 1946. He is recorded as having worked independently by 1882 at 170 Fauborg Saint-Antoine, the heart of the Paris furniture trade. After his success was established at the Paris Exposition universelle of 1890, he acquired showrooms in the prestigious place Vendôme. Cf. D. Ledoux-Lebard, Le Mobilier Français Du XIXe Siècle, 1984, pp. 439-444.