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makers / Joseph-Emmanuel Zwiener
Joseph-Emmanuel Zwiener
Biography
Joseph-Emmanuel Zweiner (1849-1895) ranks among the best haute luxe Parisian cabinetmakers of the late 19th century. Born in Herdon, Germany in 1849, he arrived in Paris by 1880 and set up his workshop at 12 rue de la Roquette, where he remained until his death in 1895. Working in several styles fashionable in Paris at the time, he copied mainly Louis XV pieces from public collections, adapting them in his own exuberant interpretation of Rococo. At the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1889, he received the gold medal and a note of high praise from the jurists: “dès ses débuts d’une Exposition universelle, il c’est mis au premier rang par la richesse, la hardiesse et le fini de ses meubles incrustés de bronzes et fort habilement marquetés”.
Zwiener almost certainly employed François Linke, who was six years younger and a fellow German-speaker. The Pankraz Gedenkbuch mentions Linke as “working in Paris with a German master”.
