Small Louis XV Cartel In Tortoiseshell And Gilded Bronze Barat à Paris

Very pretty little Louis XV cartel to pose in red tortoiseshell decorated with a rich ornamentation of Rocaille gilded bronzes.
The cartridge dial in white enamel is made up of 25 fragments (twelve for each of the hours in Roman numerals, twelve for each of the minutes in Arabic numerals, and one for the central part where the signature ''Barat à Paris'' is affixed.
The original movement, also signed ''Barat à Paris'', is suspended on silk thread and strikes the hours as well as the half-hours.
Rocaille gilded bronzes are of rare quality. In addition to the leafy or flowery garlands, the shells, the palmettes, the entwined friezes adorning the whole, one will notice in the lower part of the box a putto holding a bouquet of flowers and flanked by trailing foliage and at the top the Allegory of the victory blowing a trumpet and holding a palm.

Pierre-Philippe Barat can be considered one of the most important Parisian watchmakers of the reign of Louis XV. Mentioned as an apprentice with Nicolas Brodon in 1730, he became a master on May 5, 1742 and set up his workshop at the Marché Neuf, then he was cited in Place Dauphine around the middle of the 18th century. Married to the daughter of a Parisian master watchmaker, he quickly achieved great notoriety, notably becoming Guard-visitor of his corporation from 1757 to 1759 and from 1764 to 1766. He retired from business in 1770 and sold, for the sum of 8943 pounds, his business to the watchmaker Jean Michel. In the second half of the 18th century and the first decades of the following century, several of his clocks were inventoried with major collectors of the time, including those briefly described by the prosecutor Guy Agier in 1773, by Rosalie Nettine, widow of banker Jean-Joseph de Laborde, and in the collection of François-Camille Prince of Lorraine in 1788.
Ref: The clock - Paris

Dimensions
H. 74 cm x W. 33 cm x D. 15 cm

France
Dial and movement signed Barat in Paris
Pierre-Philippe Barat – Watchmaker (1715 - 1779)
18th century