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Lot Essay
Robert Robin (1742-1799), maître horloger in 1767.
Robert Osmond, maître-fondeur en terre et sable in 1746 and appointed juré des fondeurs in 1756, often signed his pieces. Influenced by the bronzier Caffieri, Osmond was one of the first to interpret the new neo-classical style. His work was much in demand among sophisticated collectors and aristocratic patrons. As a result, his atelier flourished in the early 1760s. Assisted by his nephew Jean-Bapiste Osmond, maître-fondeur in 1764, who succeeded him on his death in 1789, the Osmonds included most of the avant-garde elite of French society amongst their clients.
This model is based on no. 77 in Osmond's Livre de Desseins of 1775, 'Pièce à portail' (see H. Ottomeyer/P. Pröschel et al., Vergoldete Bronzen, Munich, 1986, vol.I, p.229). A related clock with the putti surmounting rather than flanking the dial, the case also signed by Osmond, was supplied by the marchand-mercier Simon-Philippe Poirier in 1777 to Louis XVI's younger brother, the comte d'Artois, for the salon des jeux in his apartments at the Palais du Temple, Paris (see La Folie d'Artois, Paris, 1988, p.108, fig.18).
Variations of the model were also used to adorn the tops of cartonniers and serre-papiers, an example of which is in the Musée Jacquemart-André, Paris (illustrated in P. Verlet, Les Bronzes Dorés du XVIIIe Siècle, Paris, 1987, p.117, fig.148). Another version of the model by Osmond, with black marble plinth, was supplied to Louis XVI for the Cabinet de la Pendule in Versailles.
Robert Osmond, maître-fondeur en terre et sable in 1746 and appointed juré des fondeurs in 1756, often signed his pieces. Influenced by the bronzier Caffieri, Osmond was one of the first to interpret the new neo-classical style. His work was much in demand among sophisticated collectors and aristocratic patrons. As a result, his atelier flourished in the early 1760s. Assisted by his nephew Jean-Bapiste Osmond, maître-fondeur in 1764, who succeeded him on his death in 1789, the Osmonds included most of the avant-garde elite of French society amongst their clients.
This model is based on no. 77 in Osmond's Livre de Desseins of 1775, 'Pièce à portail' (see H. Ottomeyer/P. Pröschel et al., Vergoldete Bronzen, Munich, 1986, vol.I, p.229). A related clock with the putti surmounting rather than flanking the dial, the case also signed by Osmond, was supplied by the marchand-mercier Simon-Philippe Poirier in 1777 to Louis XVI's younger brother, the comte d'Artois, for the salon des jeux in his apartments at the Palais du Temple, Paris (see La Folie d'Artois, Paris, 1988, p.108, fig.18).
Variations of the model were also used to adorn the tops of cartonniers and serre-papiers, an example of which is in the Musée Jacquemart-André, Paris (illustrated in P. Verlet, Les Bronzes Dorés du XVIIIe Siècle, Paris, 1987, p.117, fig.148). Another version of the model by Osmond, with black marble plinth, was supplied to Louis XVI for the Cabinet de la Pendule in Versailles.