A Louis XV ebony, tortoiseshell gilt-bronze and copper barometer-thermometer, circa 1730-1760

Our barometer-thermometer is very similar to a model from the Grog Carven collection held at the Louvre Museum (OA 10546) and another sold at Christie's on 4 May 2016, lot 241 (sold for €115,500). These three thermometers feature the same line and the same children on the uprights, as well as the same acanthus leaves on the seed.

Eighteenth-century sales records mention only two types of barometers decorated with groups of children in gilded bronze, without these instruments being linked to the name of Boulle. The first, the most widely distributed and undoubtedly originating from the merchant Julliot's shop, consisted of barometers and thermometers arranged in a flat case and sold in pairs. This model is mentioned in the dispersal of the Julliot collections in 1777 and then in the sale of the President de Bandeville in 1787, and several examples have now been identified (Sotheby's, Monaco, 17 June 1989, lot 846; Sotheby's, London, 21 March 2007, lot 28; Bergé sale, Paris, 15 December 2010, lot 264).

The barometer we are presenting here belongs to a second, more unusual type, known from its description in lot 805 of the Randon de Boisset sale on 27 February 1777.

‘805. A barometer, round at the top and ending in a sheath at the bottom, veneered with tortoiseshell, smooth copper bands, decorated with a group of two children and other gilded bronze ornaments; height 39 inches 6 lines (= 107 cm), 321 pounds, Millon Dainval.’