BY FRANÇOIS LINKE, INDEX NUMBER 133, PARIS, EARLY 20TH CENTURY

Index number 133 was perhaps among Linke's favoured models, which he produced in an array of sizes and kept the largest-avaliable version in his personal study. Payne cites that 133 came under some fire circa 1911 and remains one of the Linke's only known disputes regarding authorship to this day. According to Linke's registres, the firm had supplied twenty-six models to Schmidt & Piollet soon after the design's inception in 1892. However, Linke increased the production costs of the popular model and as a result Schmidt, a long-standing client of Linke's, had copied the model without the appropriate permissions. Though the outcome of the dispute can only be speculated, letters written by Linke in response to Schmidt's reproductions confirmed that the designs were of his own hand with the chutes designed by Léon Messagé.