Offered by GSLR Antiques
Chased and gilded bronze cartel of the Louis XV Louis XVI period, said to be the lion of Nemea after a model by Jean Charles Delafosse (whose preparatory drawing of the 1770s is preserved at Waddesdon Manor).
Our cartel is very representative of the Greek taste of the return to the Antique in vogue in the 1770s. It uses the decorative repertoire of flamed vases, laurel garlands, triglyphs, pine cone bases on clearly architectural compositions. In chased bronze and gilded with mercury, the enamelled dial signed Lethier Brunos / A PARIS is set in a case surmounted by a cassolette flanked on both sides by ram heads and decorated with a lion mask and its remains (evocation of the lion of Nemea, one of the 12 traveaux of Hercules), the damping adorned with a seed, the movement signed Baillon in Paris. Louis XV Louis XVI period circa 1770.
Jean-Baptiste Baillon, master in 1727 is a French watchmaker from a prestigious dynasty of master watchmakers in Paris who had a great success during the reign of Louis XV. Having successively purchased, for a very large sum, for himself and his descendants, the prestigious title of "Valet de Chambre-Horloger Ordinaire de la Reine", "Premier valet de Chambre de la Reine", then "Premier valet de Chambre" and "Valet de Chambre-Horloger Ordinaire de la Dauphine" Marie-Antoinette in 1770, he was entitled, after 25 years, to the noble distinction of a second name and chose "de Fontenay".
His clients included the Spanish royal family, the Garde-Meuble de la Couronne and members of Parisian high society.
This model of cartel designed by Jean Charles Delafosse (whose preparatory drawing of the 1770s is preserved at Waddesdon Manor) was quite successful in the last quarter of the 18th century; it is represented in several museums and in reference works such as P. Kjellberg, Encyclopédie de la Pendule Française du Moyen Age au XXe siècle, les éditions de l'Amateur, Paris, 1997, p. 191, fig. B. H. Ottomeyer, P. Pröschel, et al. Vergoldete Bronzen, Munich, 1986, Vol. I, p. 182, fig. 3.8.3.
Our cartel being signed by Baillon, who died on April 8, 1772, and whose watchmaker son also died a year later in 1773, allows us to date our cartel to the early 1770s, in a way the original production of this model which was produced until the revolution.
In addition to its prestigious origin, our cartel is characterized by its original gilding with mercury (wear) and its beautiful openworked hands. The movement has been overhauled and is working (wire suspension). The cartel is sold with its original wrought iron key.
Width : 41cm
Height : 81cm
Depth : 10cm
