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A very important Louis XVI gilt bronze mantle clock of eight day duration, signed on the white enamel dial Jn Fursi Le Roux and housed in a beautiful bronze case by Robert Osmond, stamped OSMOND on the base. The dial with Roman and Arabic numerals and a fine pair of pierced gilt bronze hands for the hours and minutes. The movement with silk thread suspension, anchor escapement, striking on the hour and half hour on a single bell, with outside count wheel. The case composed of a fluted column surmounted by a floral bouquet above acanthus sprays continuing around the berried laurel bezel and hung below with laurel swags and flanked by two seated winged putti symbolising the genius of music and the arts, each with an open book and seated on a ribbon-tied stepped rectangular pedestal set below with musical trophies amid foliage on a plain rectangular base supported by ball feet
Paris, date, circa 1770-1775
Height 51.5 cm, width 33 cm, depth 21 cm.
Literature: Hans Ottomeyer and Peter Pröschel, “Vergoldete Bronzen”, 1986, p. 195, pl. 3.12.7, illustrating an almost identical clock but surmounted by an urn instead of flowers with case signed Osmond and dial P. B. Bourgeois à Paris. Elke Niehüser, “Die Französische Bronzeuhr”, 1997, p. 208, pl. 217, illustrating an almost identical clock case.
The magnificent bronze case was made by the celebrated fondeur-ciseleur Robert Osmond (1711-89), possibly with the assistance of his nephew Jean-Baptiste Osmond (1742- after 1790, maître 1764). A design for the model without the putti and with a surmounting urn in place of the flowers, numbered 25, appears in Osmond’s book of designs in the Bibliothèque Doucet, Paris, (illustrated in Ottomeyer, op. cit. p. 195, pl. 3.12.5). Robert Osmond also created a number of other similar clock cases, likewise with a pair of winged putti seated beneath a fluted column such as one with an armillary sphere mouvante, with movement by Adrien-Nicolas Montjoye, Horloger du Roi (illustrated in Jean-Dominique Augarde, “Les Ouvriers du Temps”, 1996, p. 25, pl. 11). Among other comparable examples can be cited another Osmond clock with movement by François Ageron again featuring a pair of putti, one holding a rolled document and the other holding dividers, with books and mathematical instruments below, (illustrated in Pierre Kjellberg, “Encyclopédie de la Pendule Française du Moyen Age au XXe Siècle”, 1997, p. 231.
Robert Osmond was one of the most prolific as well as one of the most successful fondeur-ciseleurs of his day, working as adeptly in the Louis XV as the Louis XVI style. Valued by connoisseurs today, as much as in his day, his bronzes were widely distributed by clockmakers and marchands-merciers. He was born in Canisy, near Saint-Lô and having entered his apprenticeship at a late stage became a maître in 1746 and from 1764 until 1775 worked in association with his nephew Jean-Baptiste Osmond (1742- after 1790, maître 1764). In addition to column clocks Osmond specialised in cartel cases as well as others shaped as vases with lions’ heads. They, like the present example, reflected the height of fashion when artists took direct inspiration from Antiquity. Osmond’s work can be found among the world’s finest collections including the Musées du Louvre, des Arts Décoratifs and Nissim-de-Camondo in Paris, the Musée Condé at Chantilly, the Nationalmuseet Stockholm and the Museum of Art Cleveland, Ohio.
The movement for this clock was made by Jean Fursi Leroux (b. circa 1708 d. 1788). Though G. H. Baillie, in “Watchmakers and Clockmakers of the World”, 1947, p. 195 describes him as ‘a maker of repute’ he records him as Jean Furey, while Tardy notes his name as either Fursi, Furci or Furet. Clearly he signed his dials in a variety of manners and sadly little is known of his oeuvre. What is known however is that made his chef d’oeuvre or trial piece in 1755 and was received as a maître the same year; he perfected a type of repeating watch and died in 1788 at the age of 80.
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