Gilles Martinot, an early quarter repeating boulle 'Tête de Poupée' mantel clock, the case attributed to André Charles Boulle, French, circa 1680

7½-inch gilt chapter ring with every minute numbered, chased and engraved foliate scroll center signed Gilles Martinot A Paris with well-pierced steel hands, the similarly signed rectangular movement with five vase-shaped pillars, verge escapement with silk suspension and cycloidal cheeks, well pierced and decorated blued steel striking gates, outside numbered uncut countwheel and separate pull-wound quarter repeating train sounding on three bells, vertical hammers, the bells mounted outside and above the case, the cresting surmounted by a globe above a lambrequin flanked by trailing husks and swag-draped flambeau finials, the richly decorated body veneered on the front and sides with red tortoiseshell inlaid with finely cut brass and pewter scrolls, ormolu mouldings throughout and raised on paw feet.

Antiquorum, March 29, 1980
Time Museum Inventory No. 1996

Edey, Winthrop. "A Word on Boulle."  The Antiquarian Horological Society.  (American Section, 1996), pp. 10-11
Tardy.  French Clocks the World Over. Paris, Fifth Edition, Part One, 1981, frontispiece
Association Nationale des Collectionneurs et Amateurs d’ Horlogerie Ancienne, Volume No. 27, (Spring 1980)

Gilles Martinot, the most famous member of a large and respected clockmaking family, was born in Paris on December 2, 1622. He was received as a master engraver before 1644 and as a master clockmaker in Paris before 1646.  By 1648 he was established at the Pont au Change and made Valet de Chambre-Horloger Ordinaire du Roi in 1654; from then he had lodgings at the Galeries du Louvre. He met Christiaan Huygens in 1660 and, with Nicolas Hanet and Isaac Thuret, was one of the first French clockmakers to make pendulum clocks. It is recorded that he made a clock in a gold case for Louis XIV in 1663 and he supplied many other timepieces for the Royal family. In 1685, towards the end of his life, he was given the responsibility for restoring the clocks at Versailles. He died in Paris in 1688.

This design of case is thought to be unique to the workshop of André Charles Boulle and approximately thirty examples are known to have survived. Twelve tête-de-poupée clock cases are recorded still remaining in Boulle’s workshop as late as 1715 but these were destroyed in a disastrous fire which occurred in 1720. The fact that so many clock cases of this design were in Boulle’s workshop gives further weight to the evidence that the surviving clocks, which are relatively few in number, must also have come from the same workshop.

For a similar example of a tête-de-poupée clock with a movement by Pierre du Chesne see The Justice Warren Shepro Collection of Clocks, sold Sotheby's, New York, April 26, 2001, lot 109.