Important Louis XVI period clock with the profile of Lafayette

An important clock in carved, gilded and cream-coloured wood, decorated with warrior attributes and a woman holding a shield and a pike on which rests a headdress.

The movement rests on a base decorated on the sides with friezes of piastres and a coat of arms with 3 capital heads. It is topped by an obelisk featuring Lafayette's profile in a medallion, surrounded by the legend Libertatis Restaurator. This same obelisk is topped by a lion standing on its hind legs and a thunderbolt in its front paws.

"It was for the sake of real American freedom that, as a somewhat clumsy, inexperienced young man, very rich and very much in love with his wife, he left everything behind and fought until the victory at Yorktown in 1781. In 1789, at the age of thirty-four, it was still liberty, now French, that he tried to serve, at least until 1791. And to which he devoted the rest of his life, having never been an agitator like d'Eprémesnil, nor a theoretician like Sieyès, nor an orator like Mirabeau, nor a tribune like Danton, nor an ideologue like Robespierre, nor a coup d'état general driven by genius like Bonaparte, without having rallied to the Empire or the Restoration like so many survivors of the great period. In his seventies, he still served freedom in 1830, having become a republican, when he helped to bring in a citizen monarchy, from which he soon distanced himself. Irreducible as the Gaul he dreamed of being, his life was one of freedom. A freedom first drenched in the blood of American soldiers, then drenched a second time in the blood of the 14 July rioters, then overtaken by the revolutionary movement, but intact. A freedom born until its last day..." (in "Lafayette", by Jean-Pierre BOIS, 2015)

The medallion with Lafayette's profile is based on the one made in terracotta by Jean-Martin RENAUD in 1790 and in the collections of the Musée Carnavalet in Paris.

The original movement in working order has 3 winding squares allowing the striking of the quarter hours on one gong and the striking of the hours on another gong.

Viennese work from the late 18th century.

The gilding has been reworked and is slightly missing.

Height: 89 cm.
Width: 54.5 cm.
Depth: 19 cm.