Louis XVI Period Clock

Pendulum in chased and gilded bronze and white Carrara marble. At the amortization, a trophy of arms with cuirass and standards with the arms of France The movement inscribed in a terminal flanked by two putti, rests on a base with rows of pearls and curled with foliage. Small pellet feet. The dial, signed by Laruelle in Paris, indicates the hours in Arabic numerals in increments of five. The dates are indicated in red Arabic numerals. The movement signed by Laruelle in Paris. After Jean-Joseph de Saint-Germain: Louis XVI period. (chips at the winding hole, single-needle restoration) Haut. : 35 - Width. : 30.5 - Depth. : 11 cm The original composition of this clock, particularly the curved figures of children represented as Atlanteans, draws its inspiration more or less freely from certain projects by great Parisian ornamentalists of the time, particularly from a wall lamp project by Jean-Louis Prior illustrated in H. Ottomeyer and P. Pröschel, Vergoldete Bronzen, Band I, Munich, 1986, p. 173, fig. 3.5.5; as well as in a preparatory study of a revolving circle clock by Jean-François Forty which is reproduced in Tardy, La pendule française, 2° partie: Du Louis XVI à nos jours, Paris, 1975, p. 285. The famous Parisian bronzier Jean-Joseph de Saint-Germain declined several models of clocks whose cases are flanked by similar figures of children, in particular a first specimen published in Tardy, op. cit., p. 261, and a second, the movement of Joseph Bertrand, which belongs to the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York (see JD. Augarde, “Jean-Joseph de Saint-Germain bronzier (1719-1791), unpublished on his life and his work”, in L’Estampille/L’Objet d’Art, n° 308, December 1996, p. 80, fig. 25). Finally, note that the other particularity of the clock that we propose lies in its top decoration composed of a military trophy formed in particular by an antique cuirass, a helmet, a quiver with feathers of arrows and fleur-de-lis flags. , martial decoration which suggests that it was commissioned by one of the members of the royal family, perhaps by the Comte d'Artois, brother of Louis XVI. “De La Ruelle à Paris”: In the 18th century, two watchmakers named De La Ruelle were active in Paris when this clock was created. The first. André De La Ruelle (born in 1740), was apprenticed in 1754, registered his letters of mastery on October 13, 1762 and set up his studio in rue Saint-Martin from 1772 to 1789 /see P. Verlet, Les bronzes dorés français du XVII century, Paris, 1999, p. 435), the second, Nicolas De Là Ruelle, seems to have begun his career at the end of the reign of Louis XV and set up his studio successively Enclos des Quinze-Vingt, rue Croix des Petits-Champs and rue Richelieu during the Revolution. The work of each of these two craftsmen is difficult to identify, but one of them seems to have collaborated with the bronzier Jean-Joseph de Saint-Germain, because a clock signed Delaruelle and Saint-Germain is listed in a collection particular; finally, note that a clock also signed De La Ruelle was in the 17th century in the collections of Charles de Lorraine, Count of Bar, a great lover of rare clocks.