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Lot Essay
THE PROVENANCE – THE REDISCOVERY OF THE MEYER PIANO
Previously untraced and assumed lost since the 1920s, the reappearance of this magnificent grand piano with movement by Bechstein and ‘art case’ by François Linke is a major addition to the inventory of important known Linke pieces..
It was supplied by Linke to one of his most important clients: Elias Meyer at 16 Grosvenor Square London. The piano is visible in a photograph of 1909 from the Linke archive, silhouetted in the window of the anteroom at 16 Grosvenor Square.
The Meyer commission was placed in two considerable orders in 1909 and a series of captioned photographs of the room settings show it to be one of Linke’s most complete commissions – numbering dozens of pieces, from commodes, vitrines and tables to chandeliers and seat furniture. The orders included various pieces shown at Linke’s award winning stand at the 1900 Exposition universelle. This piano was one of the most expensive pieces bought by Meyer.
Elias Meyer died in 1925, and in November 1926 Linke repurchased most of the furniture which he had sold to the Meyers. He paid a total of 348,660 francs which included 40,000 francs for the Bechstein piano. In the 1920s Linke was undertaking a huge furnishing project for King Fuad I of Egypt to whom he resold many of the Meyer pieces. However, as Payne notes the piano stayed in London (op. cit. p. 249-250).
The whereabouts of this piano since 1926 had, until now, not be known or assumed lost. Its rediscovery as having been bought by Sir Dhunjibhoy is all the more poignant because it is offered here by direct descent – never having been resold in the interim. The Sir Dhunjibhoy purchase is apparently unrecorded in the Linke archive (blue daybooks). It is therefore probable than Sir Dhunjibhoy bought his Linke pieces through a London agent – a likely candidate being Maple & Co, who was known to the family.
The piano was bought for Pineheath House, Harrogate as part of the original furnishings made with the purchase of the property in 1927, unlike the marble statues (see lots 220 & 221) which were firstly at Sir Dhunjibhoy’s Windsor home, The Willows, and only subsequently moved to Pineheath after the war. The furnishing of Pineheath included a number of other pieces by Linke: a side-cabinet (Index No. 1688), a commode (Index No. 21); a rare corner console (Index No. 14) and an extensive bedroom suite (all were sold ‘The Property of a Lady’, Christie’s, London, 14 March 2013, lots 14; 21; 23 & 6-11).
Sir Dhunjibhoy’s appreciation for Linke furniture was undoubtedly a reflection of his wealth and connoisseurship and it can be speculated that he might have seen Linke’s stand at the 1900 Paris Exposition or 1908 Franco-British Exhibition. Another possibility is the Sir Dhunjibhoy knew the Maharadjah of Baroda - who bought heavily from Linke from the 1920s for his palaces in Delhi and exported via Bombay, where Sir Dhunjibhoy maintained shipping interests.
THE CASE - ‘MODÈLE TÊTE DE LION’
This piano is recorded in the registre as index number 1899, as being made only once, for Elias Meyer in 1909. Another piano of a similar, or identical, design but with an Erard movement is recorded as index number 1773 as a ‘one off’, ordered at a cost of 6,414 francs by a M. Laporte (illustrated D. Ledoux-Lebard, Le mobilier français du XIXe siècle, Paris, 1989, p. 441). The Meyer piano cost some 2,000 francs less to make, the difference accounted for by the movement being by Bechstein. The Bechstein archive records that Serial Number 40307 is a model III (7ft 8in long) and was delivered to London on 31 December 1896. This is the only Linke piano recorded with a Bechstein movement (op. cit. p. 455). Grand pianos with cases by Linke normally have Erard movements, or very occasionally, Steinways. It is likely therefore that Meyer specified a Bechstein, and possibly even chose the movement himself at Bechstein’s London showroom.
Laurel-festooned in celebration of 'abundance through labour', hung with lion-pelts recalling Hercules's labours and inlaid with flowers issuing from Ceres' 'horns of abundance', there is perhaps no greater admired nor more frequently imitated master work of French furniture than Jean-François Oeben's and Jean-Henri Riesener's celebrated Bureau du Roi. While also a tour de force of innovative genius and Belle Époque design, the inspiration for this extraordinary piano was the richly-mounted bureau commissioned by Louis XV from Oeben (maître 1759) in 1760 and ultimately completed by Riesener (maître 1768) in 1769. The bureau survived devastation at Saint-Cloud in 1870 and was subsequently moved to the Louvre. Under instructions from the fourth Marquess of Hertford, it is believed that the first 19th century reproduction of the bureau was completed between 1853 and 1870 by the little-known firm of Dreschler.
Linke’s first example of the Bureau du Roi, index number 710, was completed in 1902 and in all he made four. Linke subsequently applied much of the ornament and mounts from his version of the Bureau du Roi to create other pieces of furniture. Thus in addition to this piano, pieces ‘inspired by the Bureau du Roi’ include a monumental bibliotheque, a bergère, commodes and pedestals – all with the distinctive lion-pelt corner mounts (op. cit. p. 218-226).
Apart from the present lot, and index number 1773 supplied to M. Laporte, no further examples of this model of piano by Linke are known. Linke’s contemporary however, Joseph-Emmanuel Zwiener, did make his own grand piano based on the Bureau du Roi, which is broadly similar to the present lot in inspiration but differs in numerous details. One such piano by Zwiener sold Sotheby’s, New York, 20 April 2007, lot 124. For a note on François Linke, please see Lot 13.
Previously untraced and assumed lost since the 1920s, the reappearance of this magnificent grand piano with movement by Bechstein and ‘art case’ by François Linke is a major addition to the inventory of important known Linke pieces..
It was supplied by Linke to one of his most important clients: Elias Meyer at 16 Grosvenor Square London. The piano is visible in a photograph of 1909 from the Linke archive, silhouetted in the window of the anteroom at 16 Grosvenor Square.
The Meyer commission was placed in two considerable orders in 1909 and a series of captioned photographs of the room settings show it to be one of Linke’s most complete commissions – numbering dozens of pieces, from commodes, vitrines and tables to chandeliers and seat furniture. The orders included various pieces shown at Linke’s award winning stand at the 1900 Exposition universelle. This piano was one of the most expensive pieces bought by Meyer.
Elias Meyer died in 1925, and in November 1926 Linke repurchased most of the furniture which he had sold to the Meyers. He paid a total of 348,660 francs which included 40,000 francs for the Bechstein piano. In the 1920s Linke was undertaking a huge furnishing project for King Fuad I of Egypt to whom he resold many of the Meyer pieces. However, as Payne notes the piano stayed in London (op. cit. p. 249-250).
The whereabouts of this piano since 1926 had, until now, not be known or assumed lost. Its rediscovery as having been bought by Sir Dhunjibhoy is all the more poignant because it is offered here by direct descent – never having been resold in the interim. The Sir Dhunjibhoy purchase is apparently unrecorded in the Linke archive (blue daybooks). It is therefore probable than Sir Dhunjibhoy bought his Linke pieces through a London agent – a likely candidate being Maple & Co, who was known to the family.
The piano was bought for Pineheath House, Harrogate as part of the original furnishings made with the purchase of the property in 1927, unlike the marble statues (see lots 220 & 221) which were firstly at Sir Dhunjibhoy’s Windsor home, The Willows, and only subsequently moved to Pineheath after the war. The furnishing of Pineheath included a number of other pieces by Linke: a side-cabinet (Index No. 1688), a commode (Index No. 21); a rare corner console (Index No. 14) and an extensive bedroom suite (all were sold ‘The Property of a Lady’, Christie’s, London, 14 March 2013, lots 14; 21; 23 & 6-11).
Sir Dhunjibhoy’s appreciation for Linke furniture was undoubtedly a reflection of his wealth and connoisseurship and it can be speculated that he might have seen Linke’s stand at the 1900 Paris Exposition or 1908 Franco-British Exhibition. Another possibility is the Sir Dhunjibhoy knew the Maharadjah of Baroda - who bought heavily from Linke from the 1920s for his palaces in Delhi and exported via Bombay, where Sir Dhunjibhoy maintained shipping interests.
THE CASE - ‘MODÈLE TÊTE DE LION’
This piano is recorded in the registre as index number 1899, as being made only once, for Elias Meyer in 1909. Another piano of a similar, or identical, design but with an Erard movement is recorded as index number 1773 as a ‘one off’, ordered at a cost of 6,414 francs by a M. Laporte (illustrated D. Ledoux-Lebard, Le mobilier français du XIXe siècle, Paris, 1989, p. 441). The Meyer piano cost some 2,000 francs less to make, the difference accounted for by the movement being by Bechstein. The Bechstein archive records that Serial Number 40307 is a model III (7ft 8in long) and was delivered to London on 31 December 1896. This is the only Linke piano recorded with a Bechstein movement (op. cit. p. 455). Grand pianos with cases by Linke normally have Erard movements, or very occasionally, Steinways. It is likely therefore that Meyer specified a Bechstein, and possibly even chose the movement himself at Bechstein’s London showroom.
Laurel-festooned in celebration of 'abundance through labour', hung with lion-pelts recalling Hercules's labours and inlaid with flowers issuing from Ceres' 'horns of abundance', there is perhaps no greater admired nor more frequently imitated master work of French furniture than Jean-François Oeben's and Jean-Henri Riesener's celebrated Bureau du Roi. While also a tour de force of innovative genius and Belle Époque design, the inspiration for this extraordinary piano was the richly-mounted bureau commissioned by Louis XV from Oeben (maître 1759) in 1760 and ultimately completed by Riesener (maître 1768) in 1769. The bureau survived devastation at Saint-Cloud in 1870 and was subsequently moved to the Louvre. Under instructions from the fourth Marquess of Hertford, it is believed that the first 19th century reproduction of the bureau was completed between 1853 and 1870 by the little-known firm of Dreschler.
Linke’s first example of the Bureau du Roi, index number 710, was completed in 1902 and in all he made four. Linke subsequently applied much of the ornament and mounts from his version of the Bureau du Roi to create other pieces of furniture. Thus in addition to this piano, pieces ‘inspired by the Bureau du Roi’ include a monumental bibliotheque, a bergère, commodes and pedestals – all with the distinctive lion-pelt corner mounts (op. cit. p. 218-226).
Apart from the present lot, and index number 1773 supplied to M. Laporte, no further examples of this model of piano by Linke are known. Linke’s contemporary however, Joseph-Emmanuel Zwiener, did make his own grand piano based on the Bureau du Roi, which is broadly similar to the present lot in inspiration but differs in numerous details. One such piano by Zwiener sold Sotheby’s, New York, 20 April 2007, lot 124. For a note on François Linke, please see Lot 13.