Who was Eugène Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc? (1814-1879)

Born in Paris, Viollet-le-Duc spent much of his career restoring the many gothic churches and cathedrals  scattered across France. He furnished these with gothic revival designed fixtures, fittings and liturgical metalware. For their manufacture he used the Parisian silversmiths Louis Bachelet and Poussielgue-Rusand; the latter taking over and acquiring the moulds of the former around 1867.

To name but two, between 1854-68 he published the Dictionnaire Raisonné de l'Architecture Française du XIe au XVIe siècle (Dictionary of French Architecture from 11th to 16th Century) and between 1858-70 he published the Dictionnaire Raisonné du Mobilier Français (Dictionary of French Furnishings from the Carolingian era to the Renaissance).

It was through his publications that he was followed by the British gothic revival architect of the time, his influence was the greatest and most apparent on William Burges. Burges even stated "we all crib from Viollet-le-Duc'*. As a result virtually all of Burges' designs for furniture appear to be direct copies of those illustrated in Viollet-le-Duc's publications. 

His influence on the designers of the Art Nouveau is also great, in particular his theories on iron construction that Hector Guimard credits with influencing his own work in the medium.

Ref. Charlotte Gere and Michael Whiteway, Nineteenth-Century Design, From Pugin to Mackintosh, Appendix of Architects, Designers and Manufacturers, pages 280-298, George Weidenfeld and Nicholson Ltd, 1993.

* Sir Thomas Graham Jackson, Recollections, The Life and Travels of a Victorian Architect, 1874

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