François Linke was born in Austria in 1855 and died in Paris in 1946. He is recorded as working independently by 1882 at 170 Fauborg Saint-Antoine, the heart of the Paris furniture trade. Establishing his success as ébéniste at the Paris Exposition universelle of 1890, he acquired showrooms in the prestigious Place de Vendôme. He is most noted, however, for his display in the Paris Exposition universelle of 1900, where he introduced his finest interpretations of Louis XV/XVI furniture(See D. Ledoux-Lebard, Le Mobilier Français du XIXe Siècle, 1984, pp. 439-443).