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Kahn, E. & Company; Kahn, Edmond (1890-1925)

Kahn, E. & Company; Kahn, Edmond

London and Paris; wholesale and fancy furniture makers and importers of French furniture (fl.c.1890-1925)

Edmond Kahn was listed as an artistic furniture manufacturer in the London Post Office Directory (1890) at 6 St Andrew Street, Holborn.

Henry John Brett pleaded guilty to stealing a rug and other articles from his master, Edmond Kahn on 25 May 1892 [Proceedings of the Old Bailey Index, 1674-1913].

An article published in The Furniture Gazette (October 1892) detailed Kahn’s main manufactory at 6 St Andrew Street and a branch establishment for carved oak furniture at 117 Curtain Road. The article stressed the speed in expansion of the company's business, now a limited liability, with Kahn acting as managing director [The Furniture Gazette, 15 October 1892]. At this time one showroom displayed Louis furniture, at a quality rivaling furniture made in Paris, and another with reproductions of Chippendale, Sheraton & Hepplewhite; a carved mahogany Chippendale style bookcase illus. 

A full-page advertisement in the same issue of The Furniture Gazette described the firm as manufacturers and importers of french marquetry, buhl, vernis martin, carved oak and fancy furniture; also makers and retailers in carpets & rugs and saddlebags, with a new department for antique & modern china ornaments. The advertisement gave the additional addresses of 58 Charlotte Street, London and 6 Boulevard Voltaire, Paris and illustrated photographs of two carved oak Renaissance cabinets and a drawing of a Louis XIV chequer-wood cylinder bureau. The firm's rapid expansion is also noted in Cabinet Maker & Art Furnisher, January 1892. 

Payne (2023) believes that much of Kahn's French reproduction furniture was made by Francois Linke and Paul Sormani whilst the firm's English styles bear similarities to the work of Edwards & Roberts and Maple & Co.; possibly also other smaller East End and provincial makers who supplied the more prominent London firms and retailers.       

E. Kahn & Co. were listed as cabinet makers in London Post Office Directories at 6, 8 & 10 St Andrew Street, Holborn; 117 Curtain Road; and 18-21 Charlotte Street, Great Eastern Street (1900); and at 6, 8 & 10 St Andrew Street, Holborn, and 17-22 Charlotte Street, Great Eastern Street (1925). An undated catalogue gives these same 1925 addresses with factories at Gough Street and Wells Street, Grays Inn Road and a Paris address of 20-22 rue St. Bernard, Faubourg St. Antoine; with photographs of French furniture including 'Reproduced from the Fontainebleau Palace'. 

A photograph of the machine shop in the factory at Gough Street, Holborn (1905) is illus. Smith & Rogers (2006), p. 47.

Sources: Agius, British Furniture 1880-1915 (1978); Smith & Rogers, Behind the Veneer. The South Shoreditch Furniture Trade and its Buildings (2006).