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Lot Essay
Jean-Baptiste Baillon, maître horloger in 1727.
Clocks of this model incorporating an elephant were made in France from the late 17th Century in both porcelain and bronze. The figure of the elephant perhaps ultimately derives from Japanese prototypes in Kakiemon porcelain, an example of which is in Burghley House, Lincolnshire (illustrated in 'Porcelain for Palaces', British Museum Exhibition, 6 July - 4 November 1990, p. 178). Although elephants had been celebrated in the West since antiquity, the fashion for such exotic animals in France was particularly encouraged by the gift in 1686 of a whole menagerie to Louis XIV from the King of Siam, including an elephant, a tiger and a lion, and such animals soon appeared in products as diverse as Gobelins tapestries and Meissen porcelain.
Jean-Baptiste Baillon, whose lengthy career continued almost up to his death in 1772, and who in 1751 was made horloger de la reine, evidently specialized in such elephant clocks, as a number are recorded with movements by him, including one sold by the duc de Tallard in 1756 for 1600 livres. The Dreesmann clock displays an interesting combination of rococo and neo-classical motifs typical of the end of the Louis XV period. A closely related example is illustrated in Tardy, La Pendule Française, n.d., vol. II, p. 232.
Clocks of this model incorporating an elephant were made in France from the late 17th Century in both porcelain and bronze. The figure of the elephant perhaps ultimately derives from Japanese prototypes in Kakiemon porcelain, an example of which is in Burghley House, Lincolnshire (illustrated in 'Porcelain for Palaces', British Museum Exhibition, 6 July - 4 November 1990, p. 178). Although elephants had been celebrated in the West since antiquity, the fashion for such exotic animals in France was particularly encouraged by the gift in 1686 of a whole menagerie to Louis XIV from the King of Siam, including an elephant, a tiger and a lion, and such animals soon appeared in products as diverse as Gobelins tapestries and Meissen porcelain.
Jean-Baptiste Baillon, whose lengthy career continued almost up to his death in 1772, and who in 1751 was made horloger de la reine, evidently specialized in such elephant clocks, as a number are recorded with movements by him, including one sold by the duc de Tallard in 1756 for 1600 livres. The Dreesmann clock displays an interesting combination of rococo and neo-classical motifs typical of the end of the Louis XV period. A closely related example is illustrated in Tardy, La Pendule Française, n.d., vol. II, p. 232.