A Louis XVI ormolu and Sèvres porcelain pendule à cercles tournant circa 1785

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Description

Jean-Baptiste André Furet, maître 1743-89, clockmaker to Louis XVI.
height 29 in.; width 15 3/4 in.
73.5 cm; 40 cm

the ovoid porcelain body with revolving dials, surmounted by a pomegranate finial flanked by serpents, masks and flower-filled cornucopiae; the base of breakfront outline supporting a pair of putti and with an enamelled plaque inscribed Furet, Hger du Roi. Restorations to porcelain.

Provenance

Property from a Foreign Foundation, sold, Sotheby Parke Bernet, New York, April 7th, 1979, lot 23.

Literature

J. Parker, Decorative Art from the Samuel H. Kress Collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Aylesbury, Bucks, 1964, p. 269.

Catalogue Note

The breakfront base of the present clock (probably intended to house a musical movement) is identical to the base on a small group of celebrated clocks which have a clock case in the form of the head of a Negress. Furet collaborated with the clock maker and dealer, François-Louis Godon to deliver such a clock to Queen Marie Antoinette at Versailles. Other 'Negress' clocks which are recorded with the identical base are: one in the collection of HRH Queen Elizabeth II, illustrated, C. Jagger, Royal Clocks, London, 1983, pp. 162-163. A second from the collection of Marjorie Merriwether Post is in the Hillwood Museum, illustrated, Odom & Arend, A Taste for Splendor, Alexandria, Va., 1998, no. 85; a third is in the Kress Collection, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, illustrated, Parker, op. cit. no. 65, pp. 268-272, this example is fitted with an identical enamelled plaque inscribed by Furet.