Hôtel Lambert, Une Collection Princière, Volume III : À travers l’Hôtel Lambert

A Louis XVI clock "aux cercles tournants", stamped "Furet, Hger du Roi", last quarter of the 18th century

Auction Closed

October 13, 06:27 PM GMT

Estimate

30,000 - 50,000 EUR

Lot Details

Description

A Louis XVI clock "aux cercles tournants", stamped "Furet, Hger du Roi", last quarter of the 18th century

blue Sèvres porcelain, gilt bronze and black and white marble, the vase-shaped case with swan handles, the movement with later lever platform escapement, outside count wheel striking on a bell, with two turning bronze rings with enamel cartouches, exceptionally fine gilt bronze mounts and applications

height 29 in.; 74 cm.

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Pendule "aux cercles tournants", marque "Furet Hger du Roi", époque Louis XV, vers 1780

en bronze doré, porcelaine de Sèvres et marbre; (restauration à la porcelaine)

height 29 in.; 74 cm.

Sotheby's New York, 7 April 1979, lot 23;

Sotheby's New York, 24 May 2007, lot 304.

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Sotheby's New York, 7 avril 1979, lot 23;

Sotheby's New York, 24 mai 2007, lot 304.

J. Parker, Decorative Art from the Samuel H. Kress Collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Aylesbury, Bucks, 1964, p. 269.

The breakfront base of the present clock (probably intended to house a musical movement) is identical to the base on a small group of celebrated clocks which have a clock case in the form of the head of a black women bust. Furet collaborated with the clock maker and dealer, François-Louis Godon to deliver such a clock to Queen Marie Antoinette at Versailles. Other examples of clocks which are recorded with the identical base are: one in the collection of HRH Queen Elizabeth II, illustrated, C. Jagger, Royal Clocks, London, 1983, pp. 162-163. A second from the collection of Marjorie Merriwether Post is in the Hillwood Museum, illustrated, Odom & Arend, A Taste for Splendor, Alexandria, Va., 1998, no. 85; a third is in the Kress Collection, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, illustrated, Parker, op. cit. no. 65, pp. 268-272, this example is fitted with an identical enamelled plaque inscribed by Furet.