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An important Louis XVI gilt bronze mounted Sèvres beau turquoise porcelain lyre clock of eight day duration with extremely fine enamel work by Etienne Gobin, known as Dubuisson and movement by Dieudonné Kinable, signed on the white enamel dial Kinable and also signed Dubuisson, the dial with an inner Roman chapter ring and outer Arabic numerals for the 31 days of the month set within gilded lozenges, with a very fine pair of pierced gilt brass hands for the hours and minutes and a pierced blued steel pointer for the calendar indications. The movement with pin wheel escapement, striking on the hour and half hour, with outside count wheel. The beautiful lyre-shaped case with beaded gilt bronze borders and an applied gilded laurel wreath, surmounted by a fine gilt bronze Apollo mask within a sunburst above a pair of rosettes from which suspend fruiting swags, with a five rod grid-iron pendulum with a gilt beaded ring surrounding the free swinging dial movement, on an stepped elliptical pedestal hung with floral garlands and mounted with rope-twist and beaded borders on bun feet
Paris, date circa 1785-90
Height 60 cm, width 28 cm, depth 15.5 cm.
Literature: Cedric Jagger, “Royal Clocks”, 1983, p. 130, pl. 176, illustrating an almost identical Sèvres beau bleu lyre clock with movement by Kinable and dial by Dubuisson; and p. 131, pl. 178, illustrating another almost identical clock with movement by Jean-Antoine Garrigues, both in the British Royal Collection. Pierre Verlet, “Les Bronzes Dorés Français du XVIIIe Siècle”, 1987, p. 41, illustrating a Sèvres beau bleu lyre clock of 1787 with enamel work by Joseph Coteau, originally at Versailles and now in the Musée du Louvre. Tardy, “Les Plus Belles Pendules Françaises”, 1994, p. 81, illustrating a very similar Sèvres lyre clock with movement by Kinable in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Jean-Dominique Augarde, “Les Ouvriers du Temps”, 1996, p. 258, pl. 203, illustrating a very similar beau bleu Sèvres lyre clock with movement by Garrigues and dial attributed to Coteau probably made for the duc d’Orléans (later Philippe-Egalité). Pierre Kjellberg, “Encyclopédie de la Pendule Française du Moyen Age au XXe Siècle”, 1997, p. 230, pl. A, illustrating an almost identical bleu turquoise Sèvres porcelain lyre clock with movement by Kinable and pl. B, illustrating a beau bleu Sèvres lyre clock with movement by Garrigues and Coteau dial, in the Musée de Sèvres. Elke Niehüser, “Die Französische Bronzeuhr”, 1997, p. 261, pls. 1256-1259, illustrating variations of the present model.
The Sèvres Royal Porcelain Factory began producing lyre clocks from about 1785 although the case shape dates much earlier when in 1724 Jacques Thuret supplied a clock with a carved gilt wood lyre-shaped case to the Académie Française. However, it was not until the later part of the century that such clocks became really fashionable, as one of a number of decorative cases inspired by antiquity. Sèvres produced these models in a variety of colours, from dark and turquoise blue to green and pink. The Parisian clockmaker Dieudonné Kinable (d. after 1815) was one of the more important makers to be associated with such clocks; for instance between 1795 and 1797 he purchased 13 such models from Sèvres and by 1806 had purchased 14 other cases from the factory. Based at Palais Royal no 131, Kinable also specialised in skeleton clocks, many of which were also housed in elaborate enamelled cases and boasted dials supplied by the two leading enamellists namely Joseph Coteau (1740-1801) but more especially Etienne Gobin, known as Dubuisson (b. 1731 d. after 1815).
Born in Lunéville, Dubuisson worked as a porcelain painter in his hometown, in Strasbourg and at Chantilly. Like Coteau, he was employed at Sèvres, where from 1756-9 he worked as a flower painter specializing in enamelling watchcases and clock dials. During the 1790’s he was recorded in the rue de la Huchette and later in circa 1812 at rue de la Calandre. His name is associated with the finest clockmakers of his day who in addition to Kinable included Jean-Simon Bourdier and Robert Robin. In addition to the Kinable lyre clocks cited above was one from the Hodgkins Collection, now in the Walters Art Gallery Baltimore. Another from the Good Collection was sold at Christie’s, London 17th July 1895 while that owned by Lord Tweedmouth (d. 1894) was sold at Christie’s, London 25th May 1932.
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