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Lot Essay
Jacques-Augustin Thuret (1669-1739) was the son of the illustrious clockmaker Isaac Thuret (1630-1706), one of the men who introduced Christian Huygens' invention of the pendulum to France and who in 1675 made a watch with the first balance spring for Huygens, passing it off as his own invention (for which he later apologized to the inventor). Like his father before him, Jacques-Augustin Thuret was Horloger du Roi and in 1694 was lodged at the Galeries du Louvre. In 1704 he married Louise Bérain, daughter of the designer Jean Bérain (1640-1711), Dessinateur des Menus-Plaisirs du Roi. His niece, Suzanne Silvestre (daughter of Isaac Thuret), engraved his portrait, illustrated in Tardy's Dictionnaire des Horlogers Français, Paris, p.615.
Thuret worked closely with André-Charles Boulle (1642-1732), having provided the movements for numerous clocks with cases attributed to him. Thuret, Boulle and Bérain (who provided designs for Boulle) all had workshops in the Galeries du Louvre. In 1711 Thuret published three volumes of Bérain's designs: L'Oeuvre de J. Bérain, Ornements inventés par J. Bérain and Oeuvres de J. Bérain contenant des ornements d'architecture.
In the Wallace Collection, London, a clock case and pedestal attributed to Boulle has a movement signed Thuret and is almost certainly by Jacques-Augustin (see Peter Hughes, French Eighteenth-Century Clocks and Barometers in the Wallace Collection, London, 1994, pp.18-19); in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, another pedestal clock attributed to Boulle has a movement signed by Jacques Thuret. A clock with case by Boulle dating from circa 1715 and with movement signed Thuret (the Marine Venus model) was sold Christie's New York, The Arts of France, 21 October 1997, lot 47. Thuret is also known to have used cases by Charles Cressent and to have supplied the French Crown with a Boulle-cased clock depicting the Rape of Cybele.
Jacques-Augustin Thuret was able to describe himself as 'horloger du roi' on account of his lodging within the Galeries du Louvres. From 1695 Thuret was mentioned in the Bâtiments du Roi accounts for an annual payment to him of 300 livres for 'maintaining all the clocks of the [royal] buildings, in both Paris and Versailles. See Jean-Dominique Augarde, Les Ouvriers du Temps, Geneva, 1996, p.402 et alia.
Thuret worked closely with André-Charles Boulle (1642-1732), having provided the movements for numerous clocks with cases attributed to him. Thuret, Boulle and Bérain (who provided designs for Boulle) all had workshops in the Galeries du Louvre. In 1711 Thuret published three volumes of Bérain's designs: L'Oeuvre de J. Bérain, Ornements inventés par J. Bérain and Oeuvres de J. Bérain contenant des ornements d'architecture.
In the Wallace Collection, London, a clock case and pedestal attributed to Boulle has a movement signed Thuret and is almost certainly by Jacques-Augustin (see Peter Hughes, French Eighteenth-Century Clocks and Barometers in the Wallace Collection, London, 1994, pp.18-19); in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, another pedestal clock attributed to Boulle has a movement signed by Jacques Thuret. A clock with case by Boulle dating from circa 1715 and with movement signed Thuret (the Marine Venus model) was sold Christie's New York, The Arts of France, 21 October 1997, lot 47. Thuret is also known to have used cases by Charles Cressent and to have supplied the French Crown with a Boulle-cased clock depicting the Rape of Cybele.
Jacques-Augustin Thuret was able to describe himself as 'horloger du roi' on account of his lodging within the Galeries du Louvres. From 1695 Thuret was mentioned in the Bâtiments du Roi accounts for an annual payment to him of 300 livres for 'maintaining all the clocks of the [royal] buildings, in both Paris and Versailles. See Jean-Dominique Augarde, Les Ouvriers du Temps, Geneva, 1996, p.402 et alia.