A REVOLUTIONARY MAHOGANY MONTH-GOING MASTERPIECE TABLE REGULATOR WITH REMONTOIRE, EQUATION OF TIME AND YEAR CALENDAR

CRONIER JEUNE À PARIS, 1800 DUBUISSON A 1800

Details

A REVOLUTIONARY MAHOGANY MONTH-GOING MASTERPIECE TABLE REGULATOR WITH REMONTOIRE, EQUATION OF TIME AND YEAR CALENDAR
cronier jeune à paris, 1800 dubuisson a 1800
The circular enamel chapter ring signed at the bottom Dubuisson A 1800 and painted with the signs of the zodiac en grisaille on a light blue ground with foliate gilt and black-painted decoration, the standard and Revolutionary calendar months and dates indicated by a blued steel hand, the Roman mean and solar chapter ring with an inner foliate-cast ormolu bezel, intricately pierced and counter balanced minute hands having a blued steel mean time hand and gilt solar hand with sunburst counter balance, intricately pierced ormolu hour hand, the center pierced out to display the motion work with calendar clicks and equation kidney cam, the front dial plate [revealed on opening the front door] with winding holes engraved on the dial plate Remontez à gauche, and engraved at the top Cronier Jeune Elève de Robin, the movement with large rectangular plates and going barrels giving power to the twin-weight remontoire, deadbeat escapement with fine adjustment to the pallets and to the crutchpiece for the nine-rod grid-iron pendulum knife-edge suspended from a substantial brass block secured to the top of the case, the backplate with cut-out for the escapement pallets and signed at the bottom Cronier Jne. à Paris, 1800, the case with a concave-moulded stepped top, glazed sides, the front and rear doors with pin-hole release catches, the simple moulded base on block feet
20½in. (52cm.) high

Lot Essay

Cronier jeune was the younger son of Jean-Baptiste François Cronier who was Maître in 1781 and worked from the Quai de la Mégisserie, 1788-1800. According to the dial, Cronier jeune apprenticed under Robert Robin, 1742-1799, one of France's leading clockmakers and great academics (See Lot 274). Based on Cronier's signature, the use of his master's name, the inclusion of the date and the astonishing complexity of the movement, it is more than possible that this was Cronier's masterpiece. Gobin Etienne, called Dubuisson, became a flower painter at the Sèvres factory in 1756 where he enamelled watch cases and clock dials for most of the great French horologists.

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