Here's Louise, a small, slender Louis XV-style dressing table. It's made of solid cherry wood. What makes it special? It's stamped André Mailfert. A little history:
André Mailfert (1884–1943) was an industrialist, cabinetmaker, painter, and writer who founded a company manufacturing fake antique furniture in Orléans in 1904. He is one of the most famous furniture forgers, having recounted his life in a book of memoirs, in which he confessed to having produced fake antique furniture from scratch, on a large scale, with the deliberate intention of allowing his clients to deceive their own customers, antique dealers, and collectors. In his memoir "Au Pays des antiquaires," he recounts how, with the approximately two hundred cabinetmakers, joiners, gilders, patinators, and more in his company, he produced hundreds of chests of drawers, tables, overmantels, chairs, sideboards, and more.
Mailfert furniture, strictly speaking, bearing the Salamander brand, is still sought after by some lovers of charming furniture.
Excerpt from "Decorative Arts" by Proantic