| |
A very fine Empire gilt and brown patinated mantle clock of eight day duration signed on the white enamel dial Lefevre suc De Belle à Paris, the dial with Roman numerals and outer Arabic numerals for the days of the month 1-31 and a fine pair of gilt brass hands for the hours and minutes and blued steel pointer for the calendar indications. The movement with anchor escapement, silk thread suspension, striking on the hour and half-hour with outside count wheel. The architectural case with a stepped rectangular top with overlapping stiff leaf cornice, the dial surmounted by an egg-and-dart moulded arch terminating in Apollo masks and stylised branch and dragon spandrels, the glazed panel for viewing the pendulum bob flanked by husk-festooned torchères, the sides with arched glazed panels surmounted by triangular pediment mounts and flanked below by amphora, on a stepped base centred by an applied mount with vase, dragons and flanking rosettes, on bun feet
Paris, date circa 1806
Height 37 cm, width 24.5 cm, depth 17 cm.
A clock with an identical case and movement by Lepaute is in the Palais de Élysée, Paris, illustrated in ‘Les Bronzes du Mobilier National Pendules et Cartels’, edited by Ch. Massin, pl. 46, no. 3.
After the death of the maître-horloger Jean-François De Belle (d. circa 1804) his business was taken over by Lefevre, who continued the concern at the same address at rue Saint-Honoré, 1806-1820. To this effect many of the firm’s clocks and watches were, as here, signed Lefevre suc [or succ] De Belle à Paris.
|
|
/images/left.gif){kind=small}
