Lot 49
49
A LOUIS XIV ORMOLU-MOUNTED BRASS AND TORTOISESHELL-INLAID 'BOULLE' MARQUETRY AND EBONY CLOCK
A LOUIS XIV ORMOLU-MOUNTED BRASS AND TORTOISESHELL-INLAID 'BOULLE' MARQUETRY AND EBONY CLOCK
A LOUIS XIV ORMOLU-MOUNTED BRASS AND TORTOISESHELL-INLAID 'BOULLE' MARQUETRY AND EBONY CLOCK
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A LOUIS XIV ORMOLU-MOUNTED BRASS AND TORTOISESHELL-INLAID 'BOULLE' MARQUETRY AND EBONY CLOCK
6 More
A LOUIS XIV ORMOLU-MOUNTED BRASS AND TORTOISESHELL-INLAID 'BOULLE' MARQUETRY AND EBONY CLOCK

THE MOVEMENT BY THURET, THE CASE ATTRIBUTED TO ANDRE-CHARLES BOULLE, EARLY 18TH CENTURY, THE PLINTH 19TH CENTURY

Details
A LOUIS XIV ORMOLU-MOUNTED BRASS AND TORTOISESHELL-INLAID 'BOULLE' MARQUETRY AND EBONY CLOCK
THE MOVEMENT BY THURET, THE CASE ATTRIBUTED TO ANDRE-CHARLES BOULLE, EARLY 18TH CENTURY, THE PLINTH 19TH CENTURY
The case surmounted by a Roman oil lamp, the drum decorated overall in contre-partie and mounted to the sides with foliate garlands and espagnolette masks, on a waisted spreading socle and later waisted square base mounted with Ram's masks and acanthus, the gilt dial with Roman enamel chapters, outer engraved minute ring '1-60', the matted centre with raised floral and geometric ornament, pierced blued steel hands, the twin barrel movement with square plates joined by five pillars, later recoil anchor escapement with later Brocot-type regulation, the backplate with numbered countwheel and steel indication hand, engraved 'Thuret A Paris'
29 1/8 in. (74 cm.) high, overall; 11 ½ in. (29.2 cm.) wide; 10 in. (25.4 cm.) deep
Provenance
The collection of Geoffrey Gilmour, Esq., 101 rue de Bac, Paris, by whom almost certainly acquired from B. Fabre et Fils, Paris.
Anonymous sale; Christie's London, 23 June 1988, lot 17.
Literature
P. Jullian, '101 rue du Bac', Apollo, October 1963, p. 253, fig. 2.

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Lot Essay


Isaac II Thuret, Horloger du Roi in 1684, or his son Jacques III Thuret, Horloger du Roi in 1694

The clockmaker Thuret who signed the movement of this clock is likely to be either Isaac II Thuret (1630-1706), or his son Jacques III Thuret (1669-1739), who took over the workshop in 1684. Isaac was the most celebrated French clock-maker of his time, and one of the first to adopt Christiaan Huygen’s (1629-1695) ground-breaking invention of the pendulum clock (invented in 1656 and patented in 1657). Isaac II Thuret is recorded for the first time in the accounts of the Bâtiments du Roi in 1669, and in 1679 supplied ‘une horloge a pendule spiralle’ to Louis XIV. Their prestigious clients were drawn from amongst those close to the king and the highest-ranking nobility, and both father and son often commissioned André-Charles Boulle to create richly decorated cases - whose workshop was also nearby in the galeries du Louvre. Clocks with finely chased mounts and Boulle marquetry such as this were undoubtedly the most costly speciality of Thuret’s workshop.

There is a clock of this model, in première-partie 'Boulle' marquetry, in the Louvre OA5079 (H. Ottomeyer, P. Proschel et al, Vergoldete Bronzen, 1986, vol. 1, p. 42, fig. 1.3.2). The distinctive oil-lamp cresting also appears on a design for a clock by André-Charles Boulle included in Nouveaux Desseins de Meubles et Ouvrages de Bronze et Marqueterie Inventés et Gravés par André-Charles Boulle… published by Mariette in or after 1724, pl. 2 (J.-P. Samoyault, André-Charles Boulle et sa Famille, 1979, p. 215) and appears on the top of other clock-cases by Boulle from this period.

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