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An extremely fine Louis XV porcelain mounted gilt and patinated pendule au lion of eight day duration, the white enamel dial signed Anaiom à Paris with Roman and Arabic numerals and a fine pair of pierced gilt brass hands for the hours and minutes. The movement with anchor escapement, silk thread suspension, striking on the hour and half hour, with outside count wheel. The magnificent asymmetrical drum-shaped case attributed to Jean-Joseph de Saint-Germain, surrounded by leafy branches fitted with a variety of white porcelain flower heads, raised on the back of a patinated bronze striding lion above a symmetrical gilt bronze base chaste with scrolls, foliage and shell motifs
Paris, date circa 1750
Height 66 cm, width 44.5 cm.
Provenance: Partridge Fine Art, London.
Literature: Hans Ottomeyer and Peter Pröschel, “Vergoldete Bronzen”, 1986, p. 530, pl. 9, illustrating a clock with musical box, the dial signed Carte à Nevers, the case being by Jean-Joseph de Saint-Germain and having an identical lion and base as well as almost identical foliage to the top and lower sides of the dial as well an identical fixture onto the lion’s back. The latter formerly in the Jacques Doucet collection is merely lacking the additional sprays and tôle peinte branches. Jean-Dominique Augarde, “Les Ouvriers du Temps”, 1996, p. 54, pl. 36, illustrating a later clock of circa 1770, with movement by Jean-André and Jean-Baptiste Lepaute and a Neo-classical case by Jean-Joseph de Saint-Germain, featuring the same lion but this time with his right paw raised upon a star-studded globe.
The esteemed bronzier Jean-Joseph de Saint-Germain (1719-91), who was elected a maître-fondeur in July 1748, was without doubt one of the main exponents of the Rococo. He created a variety of clock cases of extraordinary inventiveness and quality for which he gained the greatest notoriety. The present case features a lion, which was almost certainly a copy or inspired by one of the celebrated models, known as the Medici lions, now in the Loggia della Signoria in Florence. One of the Medici lions that decorated the Villa Medici in Rome was of ancient Roman origin. The second was a matching copy made in 1600 by Flaminio Vacca (1753-1605) of Rome. At the end of the eighteenth century the Duke of Tuscany sold the Villa Medici and the lions were subsequently moved to Florence, though one can still see replicas outside the Villa Medici main entrance. The models were once more made famous in eighteenth century France, most notably by the renowned fondeur Saint-Germain.
One of St. Germain’s specialities were clock cases that incorporated animals, notably elephants and rhinoceroses. The figure of the lion was slightly rarer in his oeuvre and is the only figure, which St. Germain reintroduced later in his career. It appears for instance on a Neo-classical clock case made by him about twenty years later, (as illustrated in Jean-Dominique Augarde, ibid.), which like the Medici lions has one of its front paws raised upon a sphere. Such was St. Germain’s demand that he supplied to the most celebrated Parisian clockmakers of his day such as Etienne Lenoir, Jean-Baptiste Baillon, Jean-Baptiste Dutertre, Jacques Gudin and Le Roy.
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