A Louis XVI Gilt-Bronze Mounted Brass and Tortoiseshell Inlaid Boulle Marquetry Cartel Clock and Barometer, in the Manner of André-Charles Boulle, Last Quarter 18th Century
Auction Closed
February 3, 09:38 PM GMT
Estimate
10,000 - 15,000 USD
Lot Details
Description
The glazed circular dial cast with scientific instruments, Apollo's lyre, Cupid's quiver and Hymen's torch and set with enamel cabochons with Roman numerals with further Arabic chapters, surmounted by a glazed lunette-shaped aperture with gilt-starred blue painted dial inscribed Pluvieux, Changeant and Beau-Temps framed by laurel foliage and a shell, the obelisk-shaped paneled body mounted with a ribbon-tied oval classical portrait medallion surmounted by a later ball finial cast with fleur-de-lys and headed by a crown above foliate arabesque marquetry centered by entwined C's, the splayed and tapering base inlaid with ribbon-tied laurel and palm-sprays, above a gadrooned molded edge and stepped pedestal, on a flowered-guilloche tapering bracket wrapped with acanthus, above a foliate boss, the sides with brass-framed tortoiseshell panels, the later movement signed GH LES MI/43250 AND A.D. MOUGIN DEUX MEDAILLES, the bell inscribed 5.38.JB and with a crescent above a P and further stamped G3 and mounted with acanthus
height 43 in.; width 10 in.
109 cm.; 25.5 cm.
Please note, this lot contains CITES listed endangered species material and is unlikely to receive a permit for export outside the United States, and will be restricted to US-based buyers only.
The late Frank Green, Esq., who donated the Treasurer's House to the City of York
Colonel S.L. Green, sold Christie's London, 1 July 1982, lot 34 (£28,080; $49,196)
Monsieur et Madame Djahanguir Riahi, Paris
Christie's New York, Magnificent French Furniture, 2 November 2000, lot 31
Elegance and Wonder: Masterpieces of European Art from the Jordan and Thomas A. Saunders III Collection, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, Virginia, May 2022-October 2023
J.N. Ronfort, 'André-Charles Boulle: die Bronzearbeiten und seine Werkstatt im Louvre', Vergoldete Bronzen, Munich, 1986, vol.II, p.509.
An identical clock and barometer with dial and movement signed Etienne Le Noir from the Wildenstein Collection was sold Christie's London, 15 December 2005, lot 222, catalogued as Louis XVI period and later attributed by Jean Nérée Ronfort to Boulle or his workshop (André-Charles Boulle 1642-1732 Un nouveau style pour l'Europe, Paris 2009, no.16 p.228). Ronfort points out that Boulle and his sons were active poviders of barometers in the early 1700s with five listed in production in 1715, and six different models have been attributed to him (Vergoldete Bronzen, p.509-511). These continued to be manufactured well into the eighteenth century, with marchands merciers like Julliot and Levasseur commissioning re-editions of his designs. The collector Blondel d'Azincourt is recorded as owning a barometer of this type in 1783, and another version of the model was acquired shortly after the Revolution by George, 5th Earl of Essex (d.1839) and formed part of the exceptional assemblage of Boulle furniture at Cassiobury Park, Hertfordshire sold at Christie's in 1893.
An alternate version of the model without a clock and only a barometer situated in the circular field of the clock dial and consequent variation to the mounts is in the Jones Collection, Victoria & Albert Museum, London (1122-1882), and a further example of this model, confiscated during the Revolution from the connoisseur Lenoir du Breuil, is in the Musée des Arts et Métiers, Paris.
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