Lot 19
  • 19

Jean-François and Guillaume Denière fl. 1820-1901 A Louis XVI style gilt bronze and white Carrara marble double sided three piece clock garniture, Paris, second half 19th century

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Description

  • Jean-François and Guillaume Denière
  • gilt bronze, marble, enamel, brass
  • height of candelabra 29 in.; 13 in.; height of clock 24 3/4 in.; width 16 1/2 in.; depth 7 1/2 in.
  • 74 cm; 33 cm; 63 cm; 42 cm; 19 cm
the black and white enamel dial with polychrome enamel garlands signed Denière / Ft de Bronzes / A Paris, the clock case surmounted by a classical vase, the candelabra with seven candle branches

Literature

J.D. Augarde, Les Ouvriers du Temps, Geneva, 1996, p. 262, fig. 205. for the original inspiration of the present clock

Catalogue Note

The style of the present clock model can be narrowed down to the neo-classical period of circa 1770. Although it had reemerged around 1740, following the discovery of Roman interiors at Pompeii and Herculaneum, it reached a wide audience circa 1760, and emphasized the architectural atmosphere of classical interiors.

Jean-François Dénière set up business as a fabricant de bronzes in 1803. He was at 58 rue de Turenne in 1813 and by 1820 at 9 rue d'Orléans au Marais. He went into partnership with his son Guillaume in 1844. According to the notes on makers in the French version of the catalogue for the 1862 International Exhibition in London, they were one of the first serious competitors to Thomire. The company's work was illustrated by J.B. Waring in his treatises on both the 1851 and the 1862 exhibitions, and George Wallis of the South Kensington Museum wrote in his analysis of the bronzes and works of art for the Art Journal Supplement 1851 that decorative adjuncts in bronze ormolu formed a very striking feature of Deniere's display. The firm exhibited widely to the end of the century and finally closed in 1903 some sixty years after Thomire.