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Lot Essay
Mathieu Befort, dit Befort Jeune, was the son of Jean-Baptiste Befort (d. 1840), who established his Paris workshops in 1817 in the faubourg Saint-Honoré. The firm received a medal at the 1844 Exposition des produits de l'industrie français. Befort Jeune was recorded at rue Neuve-Saint-Gilles from 1844 until 1880.
The caryatid angle mounts to the present tables are after 18th-century models by Charles Cressent (1685-1768; P. Kjellberg, Le Mobillier Français Du XVIII Siecle, Paris, 2002, p. 226). François Linke (1855-1946) produced consoles tables of almost identical design; it is likely that he purchased the master models for the mounts from Befort after 1880. A single console table of this model by by Linke sold Christie'e London, 20 March 2003, lot 190 (£44,215) and another is illustrated in C. Payne, François Linke 1855-1946 - The Belle Epoque of French Furniture, Woodbridge, 2003, p. 55, pl. 145.
The caryatid angle mounts to the present tables are after 18th-century models by Charles Cressent (1685-1768; P. Kjellberg, Le Mobillier Français Du XVIII Siecle, Paris, 2002, p. 226). François Linke (1855-1946) produced consoles tables of almost identical design; it is likely that he purchased the master models for the mounts from Befort after 1880. A single console table of this model by by Linke sold Christie'e London, 20 March 2003, lot 190 (£44,215) and another is illustrated in C. Payne, François Linke 1855-1946 - The Belle Epoque of French Furniture, Woodbridge, 2003, p. 55, pl. 145.