Offered by Franck Baptiste Paris
Beautiful bronze pendulum finely chiseled and gilded with mercury.
Model representing two young women seated in Etruscan gondolas and studying a map placed on a draped table on which rests an armillary sphere.
It rests on a rectangular base with a central projection decorated with a telescope, measuring instruments, a terrestrial globe held by winged putti and finished with six small feet with skates.
In the center of the table the white enamel dial indicates the minutes in Arabic numerals and the hours in Roman numerals, it is signed "Le Roy à Paris".
Silk thread movement, in perfect original and working condition, revised by our watchmaker.
High quality of carving and gilding with double matte and shiny patinas.
Parisian work from the Empire period around 1810.
Height: 37cm; Width: 38 cm, Depth: 11.5 cm
The bronze case attributable to the master foundry carver Claude Galle (1759-1815) from an 1807 drawing by Jean André Reiche (1752-1817) kept in the print room of the National Library.
The movement by Basile-Charles le Roy (1765-1828), an imminent watchmaker installed under the arcades of the Palais Royal in Paris.
He had an exceptional career and became watchmaker to His Imperial and Royal Highness Madame Mère, to the Emperor, to the King of Westphalia, to Her Imperial Highness Princess Pauline, honorary watchmaker to King Louis XVIII under the Restoration and to the Garde-Meuble de the Crown. Nowadays, some of the watchmaker's clocks belong to the most important international private and public collections, including those kept at the Louvre Museum and the Ministry of War in Paris, the Paul Dupuy Museum in Toulouse, the Royal Museums of of Art and History in Brussels and at the International Watchmaking Museum in La Chaux-de-Fonds.
Our opinion :
Our clock was a great success and was a must of the Empire period.
The inventive design of Jean André Reiche is itself directly inspired by the most beautiful creations of Percier and Fontaine, for the gondola armchairs or the table for example.
It is transmitted perfectly in bronze by the talent of Claude Galle, while the dexterity of the watchmaker of the imperial family allows us today to appreciate the accuracy of its operation.
This clock resulting from the combination of the greatest talents of the time is quite simply a collector's item that will appeal to the most discerning amateurs.
Similar models:
-Encyclopedia of the French Pendulum”, P. Kjellberg, Paris 1997, p.398, fig. D.1
- “Vergoldete Bronzen” H. Ottomeyer and P. Pröschel, Munich, 1986, vol. I, p. 374, Fig., 5.15.1. 2
- “Vergoldete Bronzen” H. Ottomeyer and P. Pröschel, Munich, 1986, vol. I, p. 374, Fig. 5.15.2.
