拍品专文
Henri Lacan, maître-horloger in 1756.
The C couronné poinçon was a tax mark employed on any alloy containing copper between March 1745 and February 1749.
This serpentined cartel clock, entwined with flowers and laurels, is designed in the Louis XV picturesque Chinese manner of the 1730s. The mask of a Chinese sage with tasseled bonnet surmounts the clock-face's watery-scalloped cartouche and draws the attention of a dragon that emerges from the watery cave. This is undoubtedly inspired by the oeuvre of the celebrated ébéniste and bronzier Charles Cressent, who featured a related dragon on a cartel also stamped with the C Couronné poinçon (T. Dell, 'The Gilt-Bronze Cartel Clocks of Charles Cressent', Burlington Magazine, April 1967, fig. 35). The design however, evolved from a 'dragon' candlestick pattern issued by Juste-Aurèle Meissonier (d. 1750) following his appointment in 1726 as Louis XV's Dessinateur de la Chambre et du Cabinet du Roi (T.A. Strange, Guide to French Interiors, Furniture etc., London, 1950, p. 270)
A cartel clock of this model, also stamped with the C couronné poinçon was sold anonymously at Etude Couturier Nicolay, Paris, 27 June 1990, lot 135.
LACAN
Henri Lacan was received as maître horloger in Paris on 20 January 1756. Elected Juré in 1766, he was established in the rue du Bourg l'Abbé in 1770. His son Henri-Charles, maître horloger in 1771, married the daughter of the horloger Dutour. Lacan worked with the fondeurs Leligois, Gérard and Thomire père amongst others
The C couronné poinçon was a tax mark employed on any alloy containing copper between March 1745 and February 1749.
This serpentined cartel clock, entwined with flowers and laurels, is designed in the Louis XV picturesque Chinese manner of the 1730s. The mask of a Chinese sage with tasseled bonnet surmounts the clock-face's watery-scalloped cartouche and draws the attention of a dragon that emerges from the watery cave. This is undoubtedly inspired by the oeuvre of the celebrated ébéniste and bronzier Charles Cressent, who featured a related dragon on a cartel also stamped with the C Couronné poinçon (T. Dell, 'The Gilt-Bronze Cartel Clocks of Charles Cressent', Burlington Magazine, April 1967, fig. 35). The design however, evolved from a 'dragon' candlestick pattern issued by Juste-Aurèle Meissonier (d. 1750) following his appointment in 1726 as Louis XV's Dessinateur de la Chambre et du Cabinet du Roi (T.A. Strange, Guide to French Interiors, Furniture etc., London, 1950, p. 270)
A cartel clock of this model, also stamped with the C couronné poinçon was sold anonymously at Etude Couturier Nicolay, Paris, 27 June 1990, lot 135.
LACAN
Henri Lacan was received as maître horloger in Paris on 20 January 1756. Elected Juré in 1766, he was established in the rue du Bourg l'Abbé in 1770. His son Henri-Charles, maître horloger in 1771, married the daughter of the horloger Dutour. Lacan worked with the fondeurs Leligois, Gérard and Thomire père amongst others