A French Louis XIV religieuse, signed Marguerite AParis on the dial and the backplate, c. 1670-75. The turtleshell and ebony-veneered case has a broken arch pediment, two windows to the sides and is surmounted by three flame finials. The backdoor is walnut-veneered on the inside with line inlays. The blue velvet-covered dial has an engraved gilt-brass chapter ring with full outer minute markings (Arabic numerals). The time is indicated by two pierced and engraved gilt brass hands. Below the chapter ring is a signature cartouche covering a small rectangular hole to set the pendulum going from the front. The single-train two-week movement has four pillars, verge escapement and silk suspended pendulum between cycloidal cheeks.

• Height: 52 cm.
• The maker, Mathieu Marguerite was active as a clockmaker in Faubourg St. Germain, Paris in the second half of the seventeenth century.
• Literature: Tardy, Dictionnaire des Horlogers Français, Paris, 1971, p. 433; R. Plomp, Early French Pendulum Clocks, 1658-1700, known as Pendules Religieuses, 2009.