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Lot Essay
Born at Dossenheim, Bas-Rhin, Charles Hunsinger (d. 1893) established his business in rue du Faubourg Saint-Antoine circa 1859, as fabricant de meubles de luxe et de fantaisie. He specialised in ivory-inlaid furniture and marquetry. Hunsinger relocated to rue Keller in 1863, rue de la Roquette in 1867, and rue Sedaine in 1874, before opening a second shop on rue des Pyramides circa 1882. On 31 December 1872, he founded a new company with Charles-Adolphe-Frédéric Wagner, which prospered for approximately ten years under the name of "Hunsinger & Wagner." The firm exhibited at the 1865, 1867, 1878 and 1889 Expositions Universelles and was awarded a Gold Medal at the 1881 Brussels exhibition and a Médaille de Progrès et de Mérite at a Vienna exhibition.
An almost identical cabinet, with a variation in the carved pediment above the cupboard doors, but signed Hunsinger et Wagner and dated 1879, is in the collections of the Musée d'Orsay, Paris (illustrated D. Ledoux-Lebard, Le Mobilier Français du XIXième Siècle, Paris, 1989 colour plate XVI).
An almost identical cabinet, with a variation in the carved pediment above the cupboard doors, but signed Hunsinger et Wagner and dated 1879, is in the collections of the Musée d'Orsay, Paris (illustrated D. Ledoux-Lebard, Le Mobilier Français du XIXième Siècle, Paris, 1989 colour plate XVI).