SWISS GILT-BRONZE CLOCK-TOP ORRERY BY FRANÇOIS DUCOMMUN, CA 1810

A gilt bronze heliocentric clock-top orrery with central sun, orbited by Mercury and Venus, and with orbiting Earth and moon, rotating year calendar with coloured enamel plaques depicting the signs of the zodiac, with removable bell-jar cover (12 inches tall with jar); the whole mounted on a 8 1/4 inch diameter wooden base. Orrery driven by and ivory hand-crank found at side of base. Come chips to edge of bell jar. 

see King, Henry C. Geared to the Stars. The Evolution of Planetariums, Orreries, and Astronomical Clocks, pp. 306-307

A very rare and beautiful clock-top orrery by the eminent Swiss clockmaker François Ducommun ca 1810. François Ducommun was a member of a large family of clockmakers at La Chaux-de-Fonds. Ducommun was evidently very proud of this orrery, which he had originally conceived as part of a clock, as in a portrait painted of him in 1839, he appears pointing at the orrery clock. An example of this very rare orrery clock has been preserved at the Civici Musei, Castello Sforzesco in Milan.