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RICHARD REDDING ANTIQUES |
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RICHARD REDDING ANTIQUES |
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A large and very fine Louis XVI gilt bronze mounted mantle clock of eight day duration, signed on the white enamel dial Olin à Paris, housed in a beautiful case attributed to Robert and Jean-Baptiste Osmond, the dial with Roman and Arabic numerals and a very 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 wonderful case surmounted by a circular pedestal with a cockerel standing on billowing clouds, the dial with turned bezel flanked either side by two winged putti, the one to the right with a flower in his hair and in his hand, the other holding a lamp, both with an arm stretched up toward the surmounting cockerel on a shaped pedestal cast with a berried laurel and a guilloche band on projecting squared feet on a conformingly shaped white marble base with a central ribbon-tied oak leaf mount Paris, date circa 1770 Height 63 cm, width 43 cm, depth 24 cm. Literature: L. Monreal y Tejada, “Reloges Antiguos (1500-1850), Coleccion F. Perez de Olaguer-Feliu”, 1955, cat no. 230, illustrating a similar clock. Tardy, “French Clocks – The World Over”, Paris 1981, vol. II, p. 32, illustrating a similar clock. Pierre Kjellberg, “Encyclopédie de la Pendule Française du Moyen Age au XXe Siècle”, 1997, p. 237, pls. C and D, illustrating two almost identical clock cases but without the marble base, pl. C with a patinated bronze putto, pl. D with a gilt bronze putto. Elke Niehüser, “Die Französische Bronzeuhr”, 1997, p. 208, pl. 219, illustrating a very similar clock case. Pierre Kjellberg notes that the clock case model came from Osmond, the eminent firm of fondeur-ciseleurs run by Robert Osmond (1711-89, maître 1746) and from 1764 until 1775 in conjunction with his nephew Jean-Baptiste Osmond (1742- after 1790, maître 1764). The putti and cockerel symbolise the Triumph of Day over Night. Because it crows at sunrise the cockerel has long been associated with the dawn of a new day. On the other hand one of the putti holds a lamp, which like the poppy is one of the attributes of Night personified. Neither of the case models illustrated in Kjellberg, op. cit. are signed on the dial although the author refers to other similar clocks by Martin Baffert (d. after 1779) and Jean-Louis Bouchet (1737-92). The present clock was by Jean-Charles Olin (d. after 1789), whose name is associated with a number of examples, notably a Louis XV gilt bronze mounted Meissen porcelain pendule ‘à l’éléphant’ in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam and another clock housed at Schloss La Fasanerie, Fulda. Olin first worked ouvrier libre (1759) but in October 1776 was received as a maître-horloger and later in 1777 served as deputé of his guild. Moving from various addresses, in 1758 he was recorded at Enclos des Quinze-Vingts, in 1781 at rue Pagevin, then in 1789 at rue Saint-Nicaise as well as rue Saint-Honoré. His wife Anne was the sister of the clockmaker Jean-Gabriel Imbert (1735-95) who worked for Olin as a compagnon and then like him worked ouvrier libre before he was also received into the Parisian guild of clockmakers in 1776. Olin, who sometimes signed his dials ‘Olin aux 15.20’ used some of the best Parisian case makers. They included the ébéniste Antoine Foullet, the ébéniste doreur Jean Goyer and the esteemed bronzier Jean-Joseph de Saint-Germain. |