Lot Essay
The present table, known as Linke's Table à thé Louis XV - plateau glace mobile, belongs to a group of approximately eleven double-tiered examples produced by the firm beginning in 1900 for the Paris Exposition Universelle (C. Payne, François Linke: The Belle Epoque of French Furniture, Woodbridge, 2003, p. 143). A watercolor drawing employing Léon Messagé's design for the mounts is illustrated in C. Payne, 2003, pl. 131 & 132, p. 117. The exhibition model, with espagnolettes at the angles and an acanthus device to the frieze, was also shown in 1905 at the Salon du Mobilier in Paris (op. cit., p. 187).