A LATE LOUIS XVI ORMOLU AND EBONY MUSICAL MANTEL CLOCK

LATE 18TH EARLY 19TH CENTURY

Details

A LATE LOUIS XVI ORMOLU AND EBONY MUSICAL MANTEL CLOCK
Late 18th early 19th Century
The circular enamelled dial with Roman chapters signed Ragot Paris, the musical movement tripped off on the hour or at will via a repeat cord, the four individual tunes being played on eleven bells by seventeen hammers, the clock movement with quarter strike on two bells via counterwheel and later anchor escapement, musical movement associated, the square case surmounted by a neoclassical basket filled with grape-bunches, flanked by grape-picking bacchic youths, the breakfront plinth with a pierced baluster front enclosing the musical compartment on bell-shaped feet, restorations
20 in. (52 cm.) high; 13 in. (34 cm.) wide; 7 in. (18 cm.) deep

Lot Essay

Claude Ragot, matre horloger in 1785, was based in the Rue St. Denis between 1789-1790.

The 'Vendanges' clock is conceived as a celebration of the Season of Autumn and a triumph of Bacchus. A basket-bearing youth, watched by his companion, climbs a ladder to press grapes that fill a fruit-festooned cistern standing on a vine-festooned altar pedestal wreathed by laurels. The balustraded and marble plinthed pedestal is garlanded with fruit and flowers and enriched with a vine entwined ribbon-guilloche.

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