REGULATEUR DE PARQUET DE QUINZE JOURS DE RESERVE DE MARCHE AVEC DEUX CADRANS, TROIS MOUVEMENTS, GRANDE SONNERIE ET QUANTIEME, PAR ANTIDE JANVIER, 1812 ET AVANT

Both the date and the identity of the dedicatee of this clock remain mysterious. In their account of it, Augarde & Ronfort argue that given the 'decrepitude' of Janvier's finances c.1810 it is impossible that he could have undertaken the construction of so complicated a clock in its entirety and that it was therefore composed from disparate elements that had escaped the forced auction of his goods of 1810. This hypothesis receives some confirmation from the pendulum, clearly recycled since it employs a formula not used by Janvier since at least 1791, and the general style of the piece which is more consonant with a date of c.1800 than later. This however need not preclude that the clock was finally assembled by Janvier in  1811 ready for presentation at the date inscribed upon it.

            If one accepts that the presentation was made by Janvier himself, which is probable, it remains to establish the identity of Lhuillier. No one of this name, a relatively common one in Paris at this period, is mentioned in such contemporary biographies as we have of Janvier. Hayard implicitly suggests that the recipient was the clock-maker Jacques Lhuillier (fl. Paris 1769-1789), but there is nothing known to connect him with Janvier and that he habitually used his third name seems unlikely. That one, possibly two, clock-makers Lhuillier worked in Verdun in the second quarter of the 19^th century may offer a closer connection, for Janvier was faithful to friends from his early years. Other possibilities remain. It is, for example, an interesting coincidence that Breguet's brother-in-law was Antoine J. Lhuillier (1750-1840). He, after being steward to the marquis de Breteuil became the business agent of the comte d'Artois, both noblemen whom Janvier could have encountered at Versailles and with whose attendants he could have been acquainted.

The address

From 1801/2 onwards, Janvier had a state lodging in the quondam Collège des Quatre Nations known, during the Revolutionary period, as the Palais des Beaux Arts after the fine arts school that partly occupied the building. Shortly afterwards it would be attributed to the new Institut de France, but Janvier retained his apartment and workshop there until 1832.

The citations

The Latin phrase used on the temperature scale on the pendulum was relatively current among clockmakers during this period. It is also used in the regulator by Robin described under the lot 128. The quotation from Horace was also used by Janvier on his lunar phase calendar clock of 1780/1819 which was successively in the Von Bertele and Jaïs collections (Klaus Erbrich, Präzisionspendeluhren, Munich, p.164, fig. 261-2; Hayard, p.53-55).

The enamels

Two groups of enamels may be distinguished:

- the temperature scales on the pendulum and the amplitude arc plate which employ a deeper blue and a flowing gilt decoration similar to that used in the  inscription plaques on the four faces of the astronomical clock of 1789-1801.

- the dials of the two movements and the plaque applied to the pendulum bob.

The cartographically represented Moon is an exceptionally rare feature in horology. One is known on a decorative mantle clock by Kinable (Tardy, t. II, p. 210), another on a table regulator by Robin (lot 128), and Janvier used similar Moon dials in his tide clock of 1800 (N° 307, see Hayard p.108-13), in the multiple dial clock formerly in the Time Museum, Rockford (See Sotheby & Co, Masterpieces from the Time Museum, New York 2 December 1999, lot 66) of c. 1800 and in his 1831 lunar phase mantel regulator. Janvier's use of such a dial in the best of his clocks with lunar indications is consonant with his use of cartographic dials in his geographical clocks. A possible source for the enameller of the dials is the map of the Moon included in the Astronomie of Janvier's friend Jérôme Lalande (3^nd edition 1781, 4^th edition 1792). Although the reduction in size inevitably entailed loss of detail and accuracy, various features of the lunar landscape are recognisable. At the top centre Tycho can be seen, to the right of centre the Insula sinus medii and to the right of this Copernicus and Kepler. At the bottom centre are Eudoxus and Aristotle and to the left of them the Serene Sea. Above this, slightly to the left, is the Tranquil Sea and to the left of this the Fecund sea and the Mare Crisium with Snellius and Furnerius above them. Barely 5cm in diameter, the map is a remarkable, and highly unusual, example of the enameller's art.