françois linke régulateur de parquet, index number 768 Paris, circa 1903-1909

bois de violette quarter-veneer and satiné, the white enamel dial signed Linke & Cie / AParis and further inscribed F de SAINTILAN A PARIS, the twin-train movement with pin-wheel escapement and striking the hours on a bell, stamped with F de S / PARIS / DEPOSE within a shield, and the number 4305, the dial case flanked by two doors providing access to the movment, the front fitted with one spring-released glazed door, signed Linke to the top right-hand side of the gilt-bronze border. 

François Linke’s daughter, Quai Henri IV, Paris

C. Payne, François Linke, pp. 184-185, pl. 200, for a watercolor sketch of the present lot; and pl. 201, for an illustration of the present lot.

D. Ledoux-Lebard, Le Mobilier Français du XIX Siècle, pp. 435-444

C. Payne, 19th Century European Furniture, pp. 39-40

F. J. B. Watson, Louis XVI Furniture, Academy Editions, 1973, plate 51

J. Focarino, Furniture in the Frick Collection, Vol. V,  pp. 314-332; and P. Arizzoli-Clementael, Versailles Furniture of the Royal Palace 17th and 18th Centuries, Vol. II, p. 38-39, for illustrations and discussions of the 18th century model by Balthazar Lieutaud and Philippe Caffiéri.

Linke title: Régulateur Louis XVI acajou

An original version of this clock was exhibited at the Exposition d'Art Français du XVIIIe Siècle, catalogued by L. Roger-Miles, Galerie Jamarin, Paris, 1916 catalogue number 123.

The inspiration to remake this clock in the 19th century may well have been various loan exhibitions. An original model of this 'pendule-gaine,' veneered in ebony, was loaned by the Musée Conservatoire national des arts et métiers. Now at Versailles, it was shown in a line engraving in the Exposition rétrospective de l'union centrale des arts décoratifs, Paris 1882, De Champeau & Others, 'Les arts du bois,' pub. Quantin, 1883, p. 100. Six years after this loan, in 1888, the kingwood and tulipwood veneered example, now in the Frick Collection, was shown at the Hotel de Chimay 'Exposition de l'art français sous Louis XIV et sous Louis XV,' lent by the Vicomte de Saint-Georges, and again at the Petit Palais Musée Retrospectif at the Exposition Universelle of 1900. 

This long-case clock is a copy of the example made by Weisweiler, with the signature of Beneman added possibly when the clock was repaired.

Reputedly owned by Marie-Antoinette, the clock and its companion barometer were originally sold in November 1793 for 7,899 livres 19 sous to 'Citoyen Breton cadet.' The present lot is, to all intents and purposes, the exact copy of the clock now in the Frick collection in New York. However, Linke is known to have made one variation replacing the gilt bronze Apollo chariot on the cresting with the enfant guerrier sculpted by Léon Messagé. Versions of the adaptation were sold at Christie’s, London, October 29, 1998, lot 153; Sotheby's, New York, The Marshall B. Coyne Collection, June 6, 2001, lot 273 and again Christie's, New York, October 26, 2006, lot 536 (see Linke watercolor, C. Payne, Linke, pl. 200). The green registre shows two examples with the war-like Cupid, and it is difficult to differentiate between the remaining clocks made over some forty years. However, the present lot is almost certainly the clock Linke purchased from Elias Meyer’s widow in 1926 and part of the large order made for Meyer’s Grosvenor Square apartment. Interestingly, the gilt bronze was gilded in 1903 but the clock not assembled until Meyer’s order of 1909. The penciled annotation also shows further repair work done in Linke’s workshops in 1928, presumably when Linke decided to use it at his Paris apartment. Six other examples were made, all but one made by the cabinetmaker Jenicik.