An important Boulle pendulum clock and barometer.
The ormolu case with brass inlaid tortoiseshell decor. The bronze dial with enamel indices and blued steel hands. The movement later with anchor escapement and quarter hour striking to three bells. With unusual chinoiserie marquetry decor with springing (sea)horses to the sides. Surmounted by a figure of Chronos on a globe with a sickle. Engraved to the plate "HOMMET APARIS". Restored, some replacements to the marquetry. Later pendulum. H 114.5, W ca. 63, D ca. 27 cm.
The case after a design by André Charles Boulle, 1st quarter 18th C., the movement Paris, ca. 1740.
André Charles Boulle's workshop was specialised in producing clock cases. The type presented here was described as a "pendule propre pour une chambre" in Mariette's "Nouveaux Desseins de Meubles et Ouvrages de Bronze et de Marqueterie", published in 1724. A clock based exactly on this drawing with the abduction of Cybele is kept in the Cleveland Museum of Art.
A further, highly similar pendulum clock with a barometer is kept in the royal bedroom at Versailles, and a cartel clock with similar rolled motifs to the console and the same round top is kept in the Louvre.
Provenance
Formerly Collection The Time Museum Rockford Illinois (inv. no. D 1019)
Auctioned by Sotheby´s New York on 2nd December 1999, lot 71
Private collection, USA
Auctioned Antiquorum Geneva on 15th May 2005, lot 214
Private collection, Switzerland
Auctioned by Koller Zürich on 17th September 2007
Collection, Europe
Literature
Illus. in: Tardy, La Pendule Francaise, Ire partie, Paris 1967, p. 138.
Illus. in: Atwood / Andrews, The Time Museum an Introduction, Illinois 1983, p. 12.
Cf. Ottomeyer/Pröschel, Vergoldete Bronzen, Munich 1986, vol. I, p. 42 f.
Cf. Alcouffe e.a., Furniture Collections in the Louvre, vol. I, no. 30.