A Louis XVI Gilt-Bronze and White Marble Clock 'Au Déserteur', the Dial signed Trouvez à Paris, Circa 1780

Sotheby's London, 10 December 2003, lot 142

Comparative Literature:

Pierre Kjellberg, Encyclopédie de la Pendule Française du Moyen Age au XXe Siècle, Paris 1997, p. 276

Hans Ottomeyer and Peter Pröschel, Vergoldete Bronzen, Vol. I, Munich 1988, p. 197

Elke Niehüser, Die Französische Bronzeuhr, Munich 1997, p. 172

Tardy, La Pendule Française, Paris 1949, p. 297

Elegance and Wonder: Masterpieces of European Art from the Jordan and Thomas A. Saunders III Collection, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, Virginia, May 2022-October 2023

This clock depicts a scene from Le Déserteur, an opéra-comique written by Michel-Jean Sedaine (1719 - 1797) and composed by Pierre-Alexandre Monsigny (1729 - 1817). A very popular opera in its time, its premiere was at the Comédie Italienne on 6 March 1769. The critical success of the opera and its public acclaim must have inspired the bronzier Jean Goyer to design the present model, the original design for which survives in the Bibliothèque Doucet.

The clock depicts the melodramatic moment when the hero is on the verge of being arrested by the soldiers after having deserted the army, having been told his fiancée intended to marry another man during his military service.  

Several versions of this model are recorded, including one from the collection of the Earls of Roseberry, Mentmore Towers, sold Sotheby's on the premises, 19 May 1977 lot 445; another from the collection of Peter J. Sharp, sold Sotheby's New York, 13 January 1994, lot 34, and further example in Pavlovsk Palace outside St Petersburg, illustrated A. Kuchumov, Pavlovsk, Palace & Park, Leningrad 1975, no.97.