Book excerpt: Francois Linke (1855-1946), born in Pankraz, Bohemia, is considered by many as the greatest Parisian cabinetmaker of his day, at a time when the worldwide influence of French fashion was at its height. His exquisitely finished, richly made furniture was produced for potentates and industrial magnates from Paris to New York, London to Buenos Aires, the Far East and the Cameroons. Astonishingly, at the age of seventy and during the depths of the Great Depression, he secured a series of commissions to furnish over one thousand pieces for the King of Egypt. The son of a subsistence gardener, Linke trained under the strict disciplines of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and as a young man, travelled penniless, on foot, via Vienna to Paris in 1876. There he married the daughter of a local innkeeper and started a business in the days before electricity and the motor car, a business that continued, despite the loss of his two sons, through two world wars and the invention of atomic power. His early work is not signed, but can be traced to the great houses such as the New York townhouse of Arabella Huntington. He then gambled all on the Exposition Universelle de Paris, 1900 and was rewarded with not only a Gold Medal but also important private commissions that brought him both fame and fortune. The ancien regime has always been the greatest source of inspiration for artistic design in France and, influenced amongst others by the de Goncourt brothers, the Louis XV and Louis XVI styles were revived to wide popular appeal. During the Second Empire these styles were so eclectic that they became debased. Linke wanted to create a fresh new style and his association with the enigmatic sculptor Leon Message resulted in a highly original series of designs, based on the rococo style fused with the latest fashion in Paris, l'art nouveau. This style, known as le style Linke, was received with critical acclaim at the 1900 exhibition and remains popular today amongst the worldwide clientele for Linke's exquisitely made furniture. The book, with 140,000 words of text and over 700 unique photographs, many previously unpublished and drawn from Linke's own archive and private collections, has ten chapters showing the development of this exacting and prolific man's life work. It traces his early life and apprenticeship and his comfortable family life in Paris, culminating with the award of the Legion d'honneur. Appendices on Metalwork and Wood add to the technical expertise of this book, giving a unique insight into the workings of any designers recorded to date. 266 colour & 48 b/w illustrations