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A wonderful Directoire gilt bronze and marble figural clock of eight day duration, signed on the beautifully painted white enamel dial by the renowned Parisian enameller, Dubuisson, the exceptionally fine painted and gilded dial with Arabic numerals and rare outer Arabic Republican numerals 1-30 for the days of the month. With beautiful pierced gilt brass hands for the hours and minutes and a blued pointer for the calendar indications. The movement with pin-wheel escapement, spring suspension, striking on the hour and half hour on a single bell. The magnificent patinated and gilt bronze case attributed to François Rémond after models by the leading sculptor, Louis-Simon Boizot, surmounted by an eagle with thunderbolt striking from under his claws, the dial supported on a gilded pedestal with bas-relief depicting two putti with bird, on either side are two seated classical figures symbolizing Learning and Philosophy, the young man to the left with writing implements and the young woman to the right reading a book, on a rectangular marble base with rounded ends ornamented with a central gilded frieze depicting an Apollo mask bordered by putti and foliate scrolls, with two outer Medusa medallions, supported on six gadrooned feet
Paris, date circa 1793-5
Height 54 cm, width 70 cm, depth 15 cm.
Literature: Cedric Jagger, “Royal Clocks”, 1983, pp. 154 and 155, illustrating similar clock cases with movements by Lépine and Nicholas Sotiau, in the British Royal Collection. Hans Ottomeyer and Peter Pröschel, “Vergoldete Bronzen”, 1986, p. 295, pl. 4.17.5, illustrating a design for a similar case of 1785 from the Catalogue of François Rémond; and pl. 4.17.6, illustrating an identical case by Rémond. Pierre Kjellberg, “Encyclopédie de la Pendule Française du Moyen Age au Xxe Siècle”, 1997, pp. 260 and 261, illustrating two other similar cases both with dials painted by Dubuisson. Elke Niehüser, “Die Französische Bronzeuhr”, 1997, p. 86, pl. 134, illustrating an identical case.
Several versions of this celebrated model can be found in important collections including at least three in the British Royal Collection, another at Château de Versailles (illustrated in Ottomeyer and Pröschel, ibid. p. 568, pl. 6). Other examples are owned by the Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg; Musée de l’Ile-de-France, Château de Sceaux and at Stockholm Castle. The model enjoyed a revival during the Empire period when Napoleon commissioned a number as gifts for his maréchals.
A drawing attributed to François Rémond (b. circa 1747, d. 1812) for the case design was executed circa 1785 in response to a commission by the marchand-mercier, Dominique Daguerre. The two seated figures derive from models of L’Etude and La Philosphie created in biscuit porcelain by Louis-Simon Boizot (1743-1809) for the Sèvres Royal Porcelain factory. In 1788 Daguerre supplied Louis XVI with two clocks of this model for the Salon des Jeux at Saint-Cloud.
The dial features only 30 days of the month corresponding to the introduction in 1793 of a new Republican time system. The new decimal system stipulated that the months should be divided into 30 rather than 31 days, the days into ten hours and hours into 100 minutes. Few dials show true Revolutionary time but some, such as here, show the new calendar divisions. However, the new time scale proved so complicated that in 1795 it was abandoned in favour of the old Gregorian system. During the Reign of Terror it was not unusual for clockmakers to omit their name from the dial, although the present one is signed by the eminent enamellist Etienne Gobin, known as Dubuisson (b. 1731 d. after 1815), who was employed at the Sèvres Royal Porcelain Factory, 1756-9 and decorated a number of dials housed in similar or identical cases.
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