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Lot Essay
This marquetry pedestal clock/regulator can be confidentially attributed to André-Charles Boulle (1642-1732) based on a nearly identical drawing by Boulle entitled ‘Design for a wall clock with L’Amour vainqueur de Temps’, now in the Musée des Art décoratifs (inv. 723 D 6). The winged putto with scythe surmounts the recumbent figure of Chronos or Time holding a pair of weighing scales and represents ‘Love triumphing over Time’; imagery from a woodcut by Niccolò Vicentino (fl. 1510-1550), also on a no longer existing fresco by Pordenone for the Palazzo d'Anna, Venice. The figure of Time was designed by François Girardon (1628-1715), and is the principal figure on the basin of Saturn at Versailles. Related clocks were in Boulle’s workshop; in the inventory of 6 October 1715 for the ‘Act de Delaissement’ when Boulle retired: ‘Quatre figures de Temps de ronde bosse pour des pandulles, 300l’¸ and on a later inventory of 1732 compiled following Boulle’s death, which lists: ‘Une boete contenant les modeles de la pendula de M. Desmarais dont le Temps couche est de M. Girardon’. Many examples of this model exist based on this allegorical theme: a closely-related comparable on a pedestal, attributed to Boulle, c. 1712-20, is in the Wallace Collection (F 43), and another, with movement signed by Charles Le Bon (1678-after 1739), formerly in the collection of the comte de Toulouse, c. 1719, is now in the Musée du Louvre (OA 6746) - a contemporaneous drawing of this model by Gilles-Marie Oppenord (1672-1742) survives (J-N. Ronfort, André Charles Boulle, Paris and Frankfurt, 2009, p. 342, cat. no. 76).
Further examples of this clock but without a pedestal include: one in the J.P. Getty Museum, 1715-25 (72.DB.55), another formerly in the collection of Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni, c. 1712, now in the Gulbenkinian Museum, Lisbon (Inv. 256); one in the Rothschild Collection at Waddesdon Manor, c. 1720 (W1/21/2); another in the Royal Collection at Windsor Castle, with replacement movement supplied by Benjamin Lewis Vulliamy (1780-1854) (RCIN 30013), and an example illustrated in P. Kjellberg, Encyclopédie de la Pendule Française, Paris, 1997, p. 53. A further example with movement by Le Bon, which also shares the same pedestal feet, is in the Musée des Antiquités, Rouen (Tardy, French Clocks, Paris, 1981, vol. I, p. 153). An example, formerly the property of Lydie d'Harcourt, marquise de Pomereu, sold from the collection of Robert de Balkany, Christie’s, London, 22-23 March 2017, lot 75.
Clearly the richly mounted and inlaid pedestal of this clock was specifically designed to support this model as similar pedestals together with identical clocks are now in the Louvre and Národní Technické Museum, Prague. In addition to the Wallace example discussed above, a clock signed Gaudron has a pedestal with identical marquetry panel but in première-partie rather than the contre-partie found on the clock offered here, sold from the collection Akram Ojjeh at Christie’s Monaco, 12 December 1999, lot 44. They both share identical marquetry designs of the interlaced L and cross hatched panels, with the outer borders replaced with a gilt-bronze frieze – and are almost certainly from the same commission.
A similar clock and pedestal was sold at Christie’s, London, 2 July 1981, lot 44; a cartonnier, attributed to Boulle and Gaudron was sold 12 December 1996, and subsequently from the collection of Robert de Balkany, Christie’s, London, 23 March 2018.
Further examples of this clock but without a pedestal include: one in the J.P. Getty Museum, 1715-25 (72.DB.55), another formerly in the collection of Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni, c. 1712, now in the Gulbenkinian Museum, Lisbon (Inv. 256); one in the Rothschild Collection at Waddesdon Manor, c. 1720 (W1/21/2); another in the Royal Collection at Windsor Castle, with replacement movement supplied by Benjamin Lewis Vulliamy (1780-1854) (RCIN 30013), and an example illustrated in P. Kjellberg, Encyclopédie de la Pendule Française, Paris, 1997, p. 53. A further example with movement by Le Bon, which also shares the same pedestal feet, is in the Musée des Antiquités, Rouen (Tardy, French Clocks, Paris, 1981, vol. I, p. 153). An example, formerly the property of Lydie d'Harcourt, marquise de Pomereu, sold from the collection of Robert de Balkany, Christie’s, London, 22-23 March 2017, lot 75.
Clearly the richly mounted and inlaid pedestal of this clock was specifically designed to support this model as similar pedestals together with identical clocks are now in the Louvre and Národní Technické Museum, Prague. In addition to the Wallace example discussed above, a clock signed Gaudron has a pedestal with identical marquetry panel but in première-partie rather than the contre-partie found on the clock offered here, sold from the collection Akram Ojjeh at Christie’s Monaco, 12 December 1999, lot 44. They both share identical marquetry designs of the interlaced L and cross hatched panels, with the outer borders replaced with a gilt-bronze frieze – and are almost certainly from the same commission.
A similar clock and pedestal was sold at Christie’s, London, 2 July 1981, lot 44; a cartonnier, attributed to Boulle and Gaudron was sold 12 December 1996, and subsequently from the collection of Robert de Balkany, Christie’s, London, 23 March 2018.