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Lot Essay
The clock-case cartouche, with its flower-festooned serpentined and asymmetrical acanthus-scrolls entwined with oak, epitomises the Louis XV 'picturesque’ style introduced by Just-Aurele Meissonier (d. 1750) and Gilles-Marie Oppenort (d. 1742). While no identical clock is known, the inspiration for its unusual composition, which depicts a fox chasing a cockerel, is La Fontaine’s popular Fables (Book II, Fable no. XV). Typically used in boiseries and Aubusson tapestries, the inclusion of this scene in the present example suggests it might have been originally placed in a La Fontaine themed room.
While the case is unsigned, present clock relates to the oeuvre of the bronzier Jean-Joseph de Saint Germain, maître-fondeur in 1748. Saint Germain enjoyed the privilege of an ouvrier libre which allowed him to work as both bronzier and ébéniste and frequently supplied to the leading clockmakers of the day such as Lenoir, le Roy, and Gosselin. He is known to have amassed a substantial library and cabinet of curiosities and was known to be a passionate botanist, which explains the recurrent themes of animal forms and flora in his work which, as in the present example, were always of the finest quality. Saint Germain, moreover, is known to have produced clocks with red-stained horn musical plinths, such as a pendule à musique in the Dansk Folkmuseum d’Aarhaus (illustrated in P. Kjellberg, Encyclopédie de la Pendule Française, Paris, 1997, p. 118, fig. A), further indicating a Saint Germain provenance.
A related clock with a movement by Ageron – another close collaborator of Saint Germain – depicting two cranes and similarly flanked by flowering branches was sold in Christie’s Paris, 7 December 2005, lot 147.
While the case is unsigned, present clock relates to the oeuvre of the bronzier Jean-Joseph de Saint Germain, maître-fondeur in 1748. Saint Germain enjoyed the privilege of an ouvrier libre which allowed him to work as both bronzier and ébéniste and frequently supplied to the leading clockmakers of the day such as Lenoir, le Roy, and Gosselin. He is known to have amassed a substantial library and cabinet of curiosities and was known to be a passionate botanist, which explains the recurrent themes of animal forms and flora in his work which, as in the present example, were always of the finest quality. Saint Germain, moreover, is known to have produced clocks with red-stained horn musical plinths, such as a pendule à musique in the Dansk Folkmuseum d’Aarhaus (illustrated in P. Kjellberg, Encyclopédie de la Pendule Française, Paris, 1997, p. 118, fig. A), further indicating a Saint Germain provenance.
A related clock with a movement by Ageron – another close collaborator of Saint Germain – depicting two cranes and similarly flanked by flowering branches was sold in Christie’s Paris, 7 December 2005, lot 147.