Lot Essay
Nicholas-Pierre Délunesy (or Delunery) is recorded at Rue St. Louis 1764, Quays des Grands Augustins, 1772, Rue de l'Arbre Sec, 1781 & Quays des Orfèfres in 1783. Tardy records that Délunesy made a clock for the people of Lyon to give to M. Mortemar, the city's Governor, and that the pendulum was signed by its maker Boizot Fils sculpsit
The present pendulum was designed and probabaly made in the workshops of the great Ferdinand Berthoud, 1727-1807. Berthoud designed this extraordinary gridiron with its off-set bob to avoid any distortion of the bars however he very quickly discovered that the nine-rod grid-iron was more effective (and probably easier to construct) and abandoned this prototype. It is extensively described in his Essai su l'horlogerie, op. cit. and apparently only four were known to exist up until this example was recently discovered; one of the other four is preserved in the Musée national des Techniques, Paris
The present pendulum was designed and probabaly made in the workshops of the great Ferdinand Berthoud, 1727-1807. Berthoud designed this extraordinary gridiron with its off-set bob to avoid any distortion of the bars however he very quickly discovered that the nine-rod grid-iron was more effective (and probably easier to construct) and abandoned this prototype. It is extensively described in his Essai su l'horlogerie, op. cit. and apparently only four were known to exist up until this example was recently discovered; one of the other four is preserved in the Musée national des Techniques, Paris