An extremely rare and important Louis XVI platinum, silver and gilt brass and gilt bronze great wheel multi-dial skeleton clock of one month duration, with day, date and lunar calendar attributed to the esteemed clockmaker Antide Janvier with Sèvres porcelain figurines, housed in a very beautiful case by the master goldsmith, engraver and jeweller Jacques Daumy, stamped on the engraved frieze within two ovals, each surmounted by a crown and enclosing royal fleurs-de-lis, one marked Doublé and the other signed Daumy. The large white enamel chapter ring marked with inner hour Arabic numerals, each interspersed by outer minute Arabic numerals 15/30/45 and 60, with a single finely pierced gilt brass hand for the hours and minutes, the main chapter ring centred by four subsidiary white enamel dial rings of which the one at the top and at the bottom revolve, the one at the top to indicate the days of the week and the other above 6 o’clock marked with the signs of the ruling deity for the days of the week, the other two dial rings are fixed, the one to the left and right indicating the date and age of the moon by means of pierced scroll hands. The high quality skeletonised spring driven movement with anchor escapement and a thread suspended pendulum, with a pierced arched brass frame united by four screwed pillars featuring delicate wheelwork, comprising a great wheel with four Y-shaped crossings and wolf’s teeth and four smaller wheels. The magnificent case in the form of a colonnade with pierced and gilt columns each surmounted by a Sèvres biscuit porcelain figurine, one of the young winged Cupid holding an arrow behind his back and the other the young Bacchus wearing a fig leaf and holding a pitcher supported on a tree stump, surmounting the dial is a delicately pierced silver urn made by the silversmith Jacques Daumy who was responsible for most of the other metalwork including the unusual engraved foliate scrolled platinum plated frieze over a copper ground around the base as well as the pierced foliate scrollwork below the main dial ring that incorporates a pair of doves, dragon heads and flaming torches, centred within this scrollwork is a gilt bronze mount composed of a central stylised Chinaman above a quiver of arrows crossed by a flaming torch and flanked by a pair of stylised winged putti, the whole supported on three turned feet headed by acanthus mounts. Accompanying the clock is a photograph of Louis Mel de Fontenay with the present clock, which is inscribed in graphite on the reverse “Louis Mel de Fontenay - and his French clock, which he loaned to The San Francisco College of Women. Now held by Mother”. Also accompanying the clock are two letters that refer to its attribution and provenance; the first is written from Margaret Cecilia Williams to Bessie, headed 1127 Johnson St, Menlo Park [San Francisco], Sept. 18, 1942. The second is simply headed June 25, 1956 and is written to Mother Bourret, almost certainly Mother Florence M. Bourret (b. circa 1909), who taught history at the San Francisco College for Women Paris, date circa 1785-90 Height: 41 cm, width 26 cm, depth 11 cm. Provenance: Purchased in France during the early years of the nineteenth century by Andrew Morris of New York (b. c 1752 d. 1828). Given by him and his wife Ellinor née Skinner (1753-1835) to their daughter Margaret Ellinor Morris (1790-1865) as a wedding gift when she married Lewis Willcocks (1784-1836) on 16th June 1807. Given by Margaret Ellinor and Lewis Willcocks as a wedding gift to their daughter Margaret Cecilia Willcocks (1812-1891) when she married John Mel de Fontenay (1800/3-1892) on 7th June 1832. Margaret Cecilia Mel née Willcocks willed it to her children in succession, the eldest surviving child being Louis Mel de Fontenay (1838-1937), who was photographed during the 1920s with the clock. Either he or his younger sister Georgina Williams née Mel (1847-1942) then placed it on loan to the San Francisco College of Women. Thence presumed to have been passed to Georgina Williams’s daughter Margaret Cecilia Williams (b. 1874). This magnificent clock is so rare that it could be considered unique. No other comparable example has been found; it therefore stands alone. Not only is it exceptionally rare but the case and movement, which are of the highest quality, are extremely beautiful. Unlike many clocks of this age, its provenance can be traced back to over two centuries ago and for most of that period it has remained in the same American family collection, having been passed down through the generations. Its importance therefore rests upon its rarity, its horological ingenuity, its beauty and its history. Although it is not signed, the quality of the movement is such that it had to be made by one of the very finest late eighteenth century clockmakers. Furthermore owing to its uniqueness it would have been made as a special commission for an important client, almost certainly someone from the French royal family or their immediate circle. It is believed that that client could have been Queen Marie Antoinette or her brother-in-law the duc d’Artois (brother of Louis XVI) since the arrangement of the Chinaman and flanking putti on the mount below the dial combined with the surrounding scrollwork appear to form the letter ‘A’ and possibly the letter ‘M’. Interestingly the duc d’Artois had a penchant for Chinese decoration (for example a Louis XVI Chinese Pagoda clock with movement by Cousin, Horloger du comte d’Artois, illustrated in Jean-Dominique Augarde, “Les Ouvriers du Temps”, 1996, p. 301, pl. 227). Oriental motifs were unusual during late eighteenth century France since by then most designs and decoration were of classical inspiration. When this clock was closely inspected during the 1920s by Dr. William Barclay Stephens, curator of clocks at the California Academy of Sciences and an authority on the subject, he felt sure that it had been made by the royal clockmaker Antide Janvier (1751-1835). His opinion was based on comparisons with other clocks he had seen by Janvier including one in the California Academy of Sciences, though he also noted that he had never seen another by Janvier that had revolving dials. Before describing Janvier and the movement in more detail it worth noting that he was a horological genius, that he worked for the royal family and although his clock cases were seldom as elaborate as the present example, a number of his other clocks were as finely decorated and occasionally as here included Sèvres porcelain. Another significant aspect about this skeleton clock was the recent discovery of two small oval stamps on the base of the finely engraved platinum plated frieze. It is significant that the stamps have crowns above and incorporate fleurs-de-lis, demonstrating a direct relationship with the French royal family. Moreover they include the words ‘Doublé’ and ‘Daumy’. These were the marks of the royal goldsmith Jacques Daumy (b. circa 1745 d. 1828) who with his father-in-law Marie-Joseph Tugot invented a new type of platinum plating process which they termed ‘Doublé’, meaning plated. Furthermore any object by them that was plated with a precious metal had to be stamped Doublé. Daumy worked in Paris as a goldsmith where he created a number of domestic gold and silver items including candlesticks, cutlery as well as church artefacts such as a silver chalice for St. Martin at Tours. In 1775 Daumy married Victoire Tugot (b. circa 1755), by whom he had at least two children. Victoire was daughter of the goldsmith Marie-Joseph Tugot, under whom Daumy trained and whom he was working with when in 1783 he was received as a maître-orfèvre. Working in partnership with his father-in-law at the Hôtel de Pomponne in rue de la Verrerie, Paris, in July 1785 Tugot and Daumy were granted a fifteen year royal patent allowing them to be titled Manufacture Royale and to create platinum and other plated luxury objects. At that stage Daumy was described as a goldsmith and manufacturer of all kinds of metalwork and jewellery and a master engraver of gold and all metals as well as a manufacturer of gold, silver and particularly platinum plate on a copper ground. The patent letter, written by the Conseil d’Etat du Roi, then described that when creating objects with thin veneers of platinum or other precious metals, Tugot and Daumy were to stamp such objects with the word ‘Doublé’. When exactly Tugot retired is not known, although as the present clock only bears Daumy’s stamp one can assume that it was made independently of his father-in-law. Furthermore one can be fairly certain that Daumy was responsible for all the metal decoration on the clock case including the platinum plating, its engraving, the pierced foliate scrollwork and the surmounting urn. However the gilt bronze mounts would almost certainly have been supplied by a master bronzier so as not to contravene the stringent guild regulations. Platinum was rarely used to decorate late eighteenth century clocks (which when made of metal were more commonly made from gilt bronze). Although platinum had the advantage of being bright in colour and did not tarnish like silver, the technique of platinum plating was still in its infancy. It was also a complex procedure and difficult to perfect since the metal had to be heated to an extremely high temperature in order to be purified and forged. It was discovered that by adding arsenic, the metal could be made malleable at lower temperatures. The first person to experiment in this field was Franz Karl Achard (1753-1821), Professor of chemistry at the Royal Academy of Science in Berlin. The technique was then taken up by the Parisian goldsmiths including Marc Etienne Janety. However the first to use it on a commercial scale were Tugot and Daumy. They were therefore forerunners in the story of platinum, which in itself adds to the clock’s importance. We know that Daumy was already experimenting with arsenic platinum plating before 1781 when the Dutchman Dr. Jan Ingen-housz saw him at work in Paris. Ingen-housz described how Daumy (whom he called Sieur Domi) melted a platinum button two or three times in succession with three or four times its weight in arsenic to which he added a few ounces of salt of tartar. One would imagine that using arsenic could have been quite dangerous yet Daumy lived to old age, for he was about 83 when he died in Paris on 2nd April 1828. On one occasion Daumy also aided Abbé Alexis Marie Rochon (1741-1817), Astronomer to the French Royal Navy, who called upon Daumy to perfect the use of platinum plating for mirrors which were to be used in naval telescopes. Daumy was therefore at the forefront of this new type of plating process and as a master goldsmith, a master engraver and jeweller was no doubt a perfect craftsman to be called upon when it came to the creation of a very special case for this clock. No expense was sparred in its making and thus it includes a diversity of decoration and materials, from platinum, silver, gilding as well as biscuit porcelain figurines, which were made in the royal porcelain factory at Sèvres. As noted this magnificent clock appears to be unique. The closest similarity to the present piece are a series of slightly later glass plated skeleton clocks which also have a great wheel but generally with five rather than as here with four Y-shaped crossings but more significantly they lacked the elaborate decoration and often the same mechanical ingenuity. Like them, the present clock does not bear a maker’s name. However based on its overall quality and the opinion of the horological expert Dr. William Barclay Stephens, it can be attributed to Antide Janvier. He was without doubt one of the greatest horological geniuses of his time and as royal clockmaker he was in a perfect position to collaborate with Daumy. Among unusual mechanical features is the use of wolf’s teeth for the wheelwork. Here the teeth slant backwards and were thus far harder to make uniformly than straight teeth. Furthermore two of the subsidiary dials rotate, which again is an added complexity. One could surmise that this clock was made as a showpiece to demonstrate Janvier’s ability as a clockmaker. Indeed skeleton clocks, where all the movement was exposed, were primarily made to display a clockmaker’s mechanical and technical ingenuity. Janvier was appointed Horloger Mécanicien de Monsieur frère du Roi in 1783, the same year in which Daumy was received as a maître-orfèvre. When in 1784 Janvier was presented to Louis XVI by the latter’s brother the comte de Provence, the king was so impressed with the clockmaker’s work that he promptly acquired two of his planetary clocks. He also incorporated Janvier into his services and installed him at the Hôtel des Menus-Plaisirs du Roi, where he remained until moving to the Louvre in 1795. Once installed in the king’s services, Janvier bore the title Horloger Mécanicien du Roi and later with the restoration of the Bourbons was appointed Horloger Ordinaire du Roi. Janvier was born on 21st July 1751 at Saint-Claude, and trained under his father, a clockmaker named Claude-Etienne. At Saint-Claude Janvier received lessons in mathematics, astronomy and the humanities from the Abbé Tournier. Then in 1768 at the age of 16 he presented an astronomical sphere to the Académie de Besançon, and later became a member of same academy as well Rouen and others. As royal clockmaker he supplied a clock to the Ecole de Chant at the Menus-Plaisirs, a great planetary clock acquired by Louis XVI in 1789 and the geographical clock, numbered 190. Other masterpieces included his great astronomical clock with Copernican sphère mouvante, begun in 1789 and finished 1801, which was awarded a gold medal at the Exposition des Produits de l’Industrie, 1801. During the Revolution Janvier, like the other royal clockmaker Robert Robin was imprisoned though in 1793 he worked for the new government as a member of the jury responsible for inquiries concerning the new Republican time. Though Janvier never enjoyed success as an official clockmaker under Napoleon’s rule he did however continue to produce a number of highly sophisticated clocks, which were widely purchased and acclaimed both at home and abroad. From 1800 up until his death on 23rd September 1835 he lived at the Collège des Quatre Nations (Académie Français) where he established a clock making school. His pupils, who included Zacharie Raingo and Paul Garnier, founder of the Paris carriage clock industry, remained ever indebted to Janvier’s guidance. Few clocks of this age can be traced back so far into their history. Thankfully we know much of its provenance, which was outlined by Margaret Cecilia Williams (b. 1874) in a letter from her to Bessie, dated 1942. We therefore know that the clock was acquired in France during the early years of the nineteenth century by Andrew Morris (b. c. 1752 d. 1828), who travelled with his new purchase by ship via Bordeaux and around the Horn to New York, where he had a farm on 42nd Street, New York. Morris, who had been born in Ireland became a prominent New Yorker and held in high regard, was a generous benefactor. He was also the first Roman Catholic to hold public office in the city, serving for instance as Assistant Alderman from 1802-7. While in France, Morris’s daughter, Margaret Ellinor (1790-1865), was engaged to be married so he decided to buy the skeleton clock as a wedding gift. On 16th June 1807, she married Lewis Willcocks (1784-1836), son of William Willcocks who helped establish America’s Independence, while serving as Captain of the 1st Battalion, New York Volunteer Regiment at Long Island and as Major aid-de-Camp to General Stirling at Morristown April 13th 1777. In turn Margaret Ellinor gave the clock as a wedding gift to her own daughter Margaret Cecilia Willcocks (1812-91) when on 7th June 1832 she married John Mel de Fontenay (1800/3-1892). The son of an English mother and a French father, John Mel had gone to New York with his father to recoup a loan for his country and eventually settled in San Francisco where he became an importer and commissioning merchant. His firm of John Mel & Co, founded in 1856 was later run by his son Louis Mel de Fontenay (1838-1937). It was Louis and then his younger sister Georgina Williams née Mel (1847-1942), who eventually inherited the clock from their mother, after she bequeathed it to her children in succession. As noted Louis ran the firm established by his father and with his wealth he indulged his passions and knowledge in winemaking. Known as the ‘grand old man’ of Californian wine he planted out several vineyards in Livermore Valley but in 1916 he sold the estate (which was later part of the Wente Estate) and retired to an apartment house in Oakland. The inscription on the back of the photograph in which Louis Mel is seen with his clock notes that he lent it to the San Francisco College for Women. However in a letter written by his niece Margaret Cecilia Williams in 1956, she suggests that it was her mother Georgina Williams (younger sister of Louis Mel) who lent the clock to the college. We know however that it was eventually owned by Georgina Williams and from her presumably passed to her daughter Margaret Cecilia Williams. What is certain is that this magnificent clock was lovingly cared for by one family for many generations. Furthermore it remained in America for over two centuries before it was recently acquired by Richard Redding Antiques. The gallery is truly honoured to present such a masterpiece.