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AN EXTREMELY RARE MULTI-DIAL, PERPETUAL CALENDAR CLOCK
A superb and very rare Louis XVI gilt bronze and red marble table clock of fourteen day duration, timepiece only fitted with the rare feature of perpetual calendar, engraved with the signature of the clockmaker Dubief à Paris 1781 on the brass twenty four hour dial mask and signed on the reverse of the main dial with the name of the enamellist G Merlet. The main white enamel dial with outer Arabic numerals for the minutes, red numerals 1-31 for the days of the months, black numerals for the hours and inner red painted names of the days of the weeks with their corresponding symbols below, with an extremely fine pair of pierced gilt brass hands with original fleurs-de-lis pointers cut off for the hours and minutes, two straight and one serpentine blued steel pointers for the calendar indications. With two smaller subsidiary white enamel dials below, the one to the left showing the months of the years and corresponding signs of the zodiac interspersed with arrows, the one to the right showing the names of the four seasons and their corresponding symbols, both subsidiary dials with single pierced gilt brass hands with original fleurs-de-lis pointers cut off. Between the two lower dials an engraved brass twenty four hour dial with a pierced blued steel pointer. The four dials enclosed within a continuous beaded border. The main dial surmounted by a covered urn with flaming finial from which suspends a berried foliate swag, the dials supported on scrolled feet flanked either side by a pair of urns and resting on a shaped portico supported by four fluted pillars, the portico frieze with central grotesque mask from which suspend berried foliate swags, on a shaped red marble base with gilt frieze mount supported on lion paw feet
Paris, dated 1781
Height 56 cm, width 24 cm, depth 11.5 cm.
The movement is fitted with the rare feature of perpetual calendar – a devise that is only associated with the very finest clocks. Perpetual calendar is a small mechanism, which enables the day of the week to be linked with the day of the month; in other words it accounts for the differential between a 31, a 30 and even 29-day month and automatically alters the days of the weeks accordingly. This clever devise is comprised of a revolving disc with cut-out segments mounted above a fixed disc, the revolving disc being engraved with titles identifying the information to be seen through the cut-out portions.
Given that this is such an elaborate clock it is surprising that nothing is known of the Dubief, whose name and date 1781 features below the main dial. In contrast the name of the enamel painter Georges-Adrien Merlet, who signed the back of the main dial is very well-known and always associated with the finest Louis XVI, Directoire and Empire clocks. Merlet, who was recorded in the rue des Lavandières Sainte-Opportune, Paris in 1812 worked for a number of leading Parisian clockmakers. Among them was Jean-Baptiste Lepaute, for whom he painted a dial for a Louis XVI mantle clock supported by a pair of sphinxes, now in the Wallace Collection, London. Interestingly the latter, as here was also inscribed with the date 1781. The Wallace clock is similar to another supplied that year to the comte d’Artois for his Château de Bagatelle. Merlet also painted a moon phase dial for a clock by Jean-Simon Cousin, Horloger du comte d’Artois (illus. Jean-Dominique Augarde, “Les Ouvriers du Temps”, 1996, p. 43, pl. 23). In addition he supplied a simpler dial for J-B Lepaute during the 1780’s to replace an earlier mechanism and dial housed in a Boulle case featuring Night and Day (now in the Musée de l’Histoire de France, Paris). Regarded as one of the leading artists of his trade, Merlet also worked for Robert Robin, Horloger du Roi, to whom he supplied a dial for a cartel clock with case by Jean-Baptiste Osmond (illus. Augarde, ibid. p. 17, pl. 4).
The dial hands are also particularly interesting since little more than a decade after the clock was completed the original fleurs-de lis pointers were cut off. This was on the instruction of the new Republic who decreed that all symbols or motifs associated with the former French monarchy were to be removed.
The case itself was typical of a number made toward the end of the eighteenth century, where classical architecture provided a constant inspiration for Neo-classical designs, in particular for the column, portico or temple clock. Many such architectural case designs were drawn and published in Paris, notably by Delafosse, Forty and Dugourc, circa 1770-90. As their name suggests these case designs featured a portico supported by a pair or several pairs of columns, with the clock drum either suspended from the portico or supported upon it. The columns themselves often imitated the classical orders, from the simple Doric to the Ionic and more elaborate Corinthian. Cases were further adorned with classical motifs such as urns, swags as well as eagles, lions or even mythological figures.
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