A LOUIS XV ORMOLU-MOUNTED TULIPWOOD AND AMARANTH LONGCASE CLOCK

BY BALTHAZAR LIEUTAUD

Details

A LOUIS XV ORMOLU-MOUNTED TULIPWOOD AND AMARANTH LONGCASE CLOCK
By Balthazar Lieutaud
The dial signed in the trellis-engraved centre 'Charles Baltazar AParis' and now overlaid with a gilt circular plate signed 'Robin' with subsidiary white enamel seconds ring and outer white enamel Roman chapter ring with Breguet-style blued steel hands, the associated two-train movement with back-pinned vase-shaped pillars, later pin-wheel escapement (lacking pendulum), quarter strike on two bells with hour strike on a further bell via a calibrated hour countwheel with trip lever across the backplate to the quarter countwheel,
within a shaped case with strongly scrolling foliage and rocaille above a shaped door centred to the top by a bacchic espagnolette mask and a shaped glazed panel, all within C-scrolls and foliage, the lower section with a glazed door and foliage to the base, on a shaped plinth, the plinth and the inside of the top stamped 'B.LIEUTAUD', the reverse with inventory number 'AR599'
82 in. (209 cm.) high; 24 in. (61 cm.) wide; 10 in. (25 cm.) deep

Provenance

Rothschild inv. no. AR599.

Literature

J.-D. Augarde, Les Ouvriers du Temps, Geneva, 1996, p. 393.

Lot Essay

Balthazar Lieutaud, matre in 1749.
Henri-Charles Balthazar (d.1776), appointed horloger de Mesdames filles de France in 1717.
Robert Robin, appointed marchand-horloger privilgi du Roi in 1763.

Charles Balthazar was extensively patronised by the Garde-Meuble and is known to have supplied them with clocks whose cases were made by both Lieutaud and Jean-Joseph de Saint-Germain. Lieutaud, contrastingly, specialized in the production of clock-cases from his atelier in the rue d'Enfer.

A longcase clock by Balthazar Lieutaud with closely related mounts is in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (H. Lengell [Tardy], French Clocks the World Over, Paris, 1981, I, p. 321, fig. 6).

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