Clock - Lot 274

Lot n° 274
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Estimation :
1000 - 2000 EUR
Result with fees
Result : 2 200EUR
Clock - Lot 274
Clock in white marble and gilt bronze, the dial inscribed in a rock on which are leaning a draped woman and a love, between them a dog on a cushion, symbolizing fidelity. The dial indicates the hours in Roman numerals, the minutes in Arabic numerals, the days of the week. Three hands, two with fleur-de-lis, the other in blued steel. Rectangular base with chased and gilded bronze frieze decorated with foliage. Small feet toupies. Enamelled dial signed Furet Louis XVI period. H. 42 cm - W. 37 cm - D. 13,5 cm (has a key, the balance wheel and a foot are missing) Jean-Baptiste-André Furet, received master in 1746, ordinary clockmaker of the king for his library practicing rue Saint-Honoré. His balance sheet of 1786 mentions clocks with Carrara marble subjects. In the second half of the 18th century, gilded bronze predominated in furnishings, especially clocks. However, marble, which had been used until then most often as a decorative base, sometimes took the place of the bronze allegories that it supported to create, as Pierre Kjellberg points out, true sculpture-clocks. The themes, linked to the allegories of love, friendship and fidelity, are borrowed from classical watchmaking models, themselves strongly influenced by certain contemporary sculptors such as Clodion, Falconet or Pigalle. The clock presented here was made in this innovative context of the decorative arts of the time. The elegant clock we present was executed after a watercolor drawing, now preserved in the collection of the Doucet Library, under number 31. Several other examples depicting scenes of the same inspiration are known: let us quote particularly a first preparatory drawing illustrating a young woman near an open cage, the young Cupid holding a bird to her (P. Kjellberg, Encyclopédie de la pendule française, Paris, 1997, p.296); a second one representing a young woman and whose base is decorated with a gilded bronze frieze in the Clodion style, close to the one of the proposed example (Connaissance des Arts, September 1953, n° 19, p. 17); a third one illustrating a young woman and whose base is decorated with a gilded bronze frieze in the Clodion style, close to the one of the proposed example (Connaissance des Arts, September 1953, n° 19, p. 17); a third one illustrating a subject in the same spirit was part of the Founès liquidation (sale in Paris, Me Baudouin, galerie Charpentier, June 27, 1935, lot 86); finally, more recently, a last one was sold during the dispersal of the Wildenstein collection (Christie's, London, December 14 and 15, 2005, lot 332)
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