CIRCA 1785, THE DIAL SIGNED BREANT A PARIS

With its chinoiserie theme, this jewel-like clock relates to those furnishings and decorative objects supplied by Dominique Daguerre to the Prince of Wales for Carlton House. Daguerre was a successor to Gauber as decorator of Carlton House in 1787 after being invited by the Prince of Wales to supervise, which Daguerre did until the early 1790s. During this time, Daguerre supplied furnishings for the Chinese Room, among others, that reflected the Prince of Wales’ taste for chinoiserie. These pieces include a console desserte by Adam Weisweiler, a chinoiserie clock, and a set of candelabra, among others. A shared design element on many of these pieces is the dragon motif. The dragons perched on the pagoda roof of the lot offered here are very similar to those that appear on a ormolu-mounted urn illustrated Carlton House: The Past Glories of George IV's Palace, exh. cat. 1991, p. 65. Dragon-cast ormolu mounts also decorate two Chinese porcelain vases and the abovementioned console, illustrated ibid. p. 97 and p. 103, respectively. A clock of this model acquired by HRH Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother in 1948 is also in the British Royal Collections at Clarence House (illustrated C. Jagger, Royal Clocks, London, 1983, pp. 136-9). A clock of the same design but with a porcelain group seated inside the pagoda was sold from the collection of the Los Angeles County Museum, Christie’s, New York, 19 May 2004, lot 319 ($47,800). A virtually identical clock lacking the biscuit porcelain group is illustrated in E. Niehüser, French Bronze Clocks: 1700-1830, Atglen, 1999, p. 251, No. 1101.