François de Salverte

Count François de Salverte (1872–1929) was a French aristocrat, diplomat and non-fiction writer about furniture design.

Early life
François de Salverte was born into an aristocratic family in 1872. His father, Georges Napoléon Baconière de Salverte (1833-1899), was a senior lawyer at the Conseil d'Etat. His mother was Marie Joséphine Charlotte Guyot d'Arlincourt (1848-1912). His great-uncle, Eusèbe Baconière de Salverte, was a writer and politician.

He graduated from the Institut Catholique de Paris in 1893, with a degree in Law.

Career
He was appointed as diplomatic attache at the French embassy in Constantinople in 1903.

He wrote Les Ébénistes du XVIIIe siècle leurs oeuvres et leurs marques in 1927. Two years later, in July 1929, he gifted a copy to Queen consort Mary of Teck. The book was republished seven times. It was the first book about French ébénistes ever published.

He published articles about furniture design in La Revue de l'art ancien et moderne. In 1928, he gave a lecture about Martin Carlin and Georges Jacob, two ébénistes, at a conference organised by the Société de l'Histoire de l'Art Français.

Shortly before his death, he started writing Le Meuble français d'après les ornemanistes de 1660 à 1789. The book was finished by Gustave Macon, Assistant to Henri d'Orléans, Duke of Aumale and Archivist at the Château de Chantilly, with a foreword written by his widow. In the book, he stressed that he valued French furniture design during the Ancien Régime, and saw furniture designed after the French Revolution, including during the Bourbon Restoration, as "decadent."

Personal life
He married Marguerite Dupré in 1900. She became styled as Countess de Salverte.

Death
He died in 1929.