An Empire ormolu and marble astronomical month-going striking skeleton clock

ATTRIBUTED TO VERNEUIL, CIRCA 1820

Details

An Empire ormolu and marble astronomical month-going striking skeleton clock
Attributed to Verneuil, circa 1820
The engraved silvered Roman dial with subsidiary seconds ring at XII, blued steel moon hands with counterpoised minute hand, within an ormolu egg-and-dart and ropetwist bezel, subsidiary rings below for moonphase, date and day of week, the movement with break-arch shaped plates with five back-pinned pillars and twin barrels, the going with pin wheel escapement and vertically positioned steel-suspended grid-iron pendulum with half-second dial within the gilt bob, outside countwheel strike on bell, the movement supported on two ormolu rectangular plinths with acanthus moulded bases supported on a green marble base with a foliate cast mount to the front and on further ormolu plinth with rosette and foliate feet; ormolu-framed glazed dome on ogee moulded mahogany base
33½ in. (84.5 cm.) high

Lot Essay

A fairly similar but larger clock signed Verneuil Her. Mien was sold in these rooms, 12 June 1996, lot 273 (£62,000).
Derek Roberts Continental and American Skeleton Clocks, Schiffer, 1989, p. 48, describes the Verneuil clocks as having a close family resemblance. They mostly have calendar work laid out in a similar way, some with enamelled and others silvered brass dials and most rest on figured marble bases. Virtually all the examples have grid-iron pendulums, many of them raised above the dials.
The present clock is a particularly small and pretty size and is neatly shown off within its display case.

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