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Lot Essay
The signature must be that of Nicolas Le Brasseur, recorded as maître-horloger on 13 January 1761 under privilege of the Hopital de la Trinité. Based in Rue Bourg l'Abbé, he sold his stock in 1772, and worked with the bronzier Noel, to who he owed 500 Livres in 1773. He was still recorded as horloger in 1783 in Versailles.
Antoine Zacharie Solon became a maître-fondeur on 10 September 1756. Not only bronzier, Solon was as well a manufacturer of cartel carcases, as well as various other ormolu objects. A pair of early Louis XV wall-lights by Solon are known, as well as the celbrated pair of equestrian chenets after Coustou which are almost certainly those recorded in the Blondel de Gagny sale in Paris, 10 December 1776, lot 1028 (sold anonymously at Sotheby's New York, 22 May 1997, lot 113).
Further clocks of this unusual model are recorded. One is in the Hermitage Museum, illustrated in in Hilgers, Western European Clocks from the Sixteenth to Nineteenth Centuries, Leningrad, no. 103, whilst another was sold from the collection of M. and Mme. Arnold Seligman, Galerie Jean Carpentier, Paris, 4-5 June 1935, lot 125.
A further cartel of this model with movement by Regnault A Paris was sold from the collection of Erich von Goldschmidt-Rothschild, Lepke Berlin, 23-25 March 1931, lot 341. Finally, a clock of this model, but with case signed St. Germain for the maître-fondeur Jean-Joseph de Saint-Germain, was sold anonymously at Sotheby's London, 14 June 2000, lot 30 (£25,300).
Antoine Zacharie Solon became a maître-fondeur on 10 September 1756. Not only bronzier, Solon was as well a manufacturer of cartel carcases, as well as various other ormolu objects. A pair of early Louis XV wall-lights by Solon are known, as well as the celbrated pair of equestrian chenets after Coustou which are almost certainly those recorded in the Blondel de Gagny sale in Paris, 10 December 1776, lot 1028 (sold anonymously at Sotheby's New York, 22 May 1997, lot 113).
Further clocks of this unusual model are recorded. One is in the Hermitage Museum, illustrated in in Hilgers, Western European Clocks from the Sixteenth to Nineteenth Centuries, Leningrad, no. 103, whilst another was sold from the collection of M. and Mme. Arnold Seligman, Galerie Jean Carpentier, Paris, 4-5 June 1935, lot 125.
A further cartel of this model with movement by Regnault A Paris was sold from the collection of Erich von Goldschmidt-Rothschild, Lepke Berlin, 23-25 March 1931, lot 341. Finally, a clock of this model, but with case signed St. Germain for the maître-fondeur Jean-Joseph de Saint-Germain, was sold anonymously at Sotheby's London, 14 June 2000, lot 30 (£25,300).