A LOUIS XV ORMOLU AND MEISSEN PORCELAIN MANTEL CLOCK

THE DIAL SIGNED CHARLES LEROY A PARIS, THE MEISSEN PORCELAIN FIGURES MODELLED BY J.J. KAENDLER, CIRCA 1745-49

Details
A LOUIS XV ORMOLU AND MEISSEN PORCELAIN MANTEL CLOCK
The dial signed CHARLES LEROY A PARIS, the Meissen porcelain figures modelled by J.J. Kaendler, circa 1745-49
In the form of ruins overgrown with flowering branches, the arch surmounted by a glazed bezel, enclosing a white enamelled dial with Arabic and Roman chapter rings signed CHARLES.LEROY/A PARIS., set with elaborately-pierced and engraved hands, the base composed of a terrace, centered with a a shepherd and shepherdess with a dog and lamb and three overgrown staircases with pierced and scrolled guilloche balustrades, that on the left set with a harlequin figure, with the C couronn poinon
17in. (43cm.) high, 15in. (39.5cm.) wide
Provenance
Acquired from Partridge Fine Arts, London.
Sale room notice
Please note that the illustration for lot 514 is incorrectly labeled as 513

Lot Essay

Charles Le Roy, matre in 1733.

The C couronn poinon was a tax mark employed in France on any alloy containing copper between March 1745 and February 1749.

A clock set with Meissen figures within a virtually-identical architectural-setting is illustrated in P. Kjellberg, Encyclpdie de la Pendule Franaise, Paris, 1997, p. 139, fig. f.

The group of the shepherd and shepherdess were copied by J.J. Kaendler about 1745 after a composition by Boucher. Very similar examples are known with variations in the painting of his hat, pants, and shoes and in her skirt and shoes:- one in the collection of Dr. Ernst Schneider, Dusseldorf is illustrated in Meissener Porzellan, 1710-1810, Munich, 1966, fig. 869, pp. 168, 209), whilst another in the Paul-Eisenbeiss collection, Basel is illustrated in In Porzellan verzaubert, Basel, 1993, p. 149. Two variations were also made, with the figures beaneath a tree bough and next to a tree stump. An example of the former, modelled by Kaendler in 1738, is in the Untermeyer collection (illustrated in Y. Hackenbroch, Meissen and Other Continental Porcelain Faience and Enamel, Cambridge, 1956, pl. 65, fig. 95, pp. 104-05; all of the other examples known to the author were also published therin). The same group can also be seen as part of a pendule within a similar architectural-setting in Kjellberg, op. cit., p. 138, fig. b.

First produced in 1765 for the Kaiser, the figure of a Harlequin, one of the Komdienkinder, was made until about 1775. A virtually identical example in the collection of Countess Anita de Zichy-Thyssen is illustrated in Meissener Porzellan, 1710-1810, Munich, 1966, fig. 1013, pp. 185, 248.

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