AFTER THE MODEL BY ROBERT OSMOND, SIGNED CHARLES BERTRAND, WITH POSSIBLE ALTERATIONS

The basic design for this model of clock is due to the famous ornemaniste Jean-Charles Delafosse (1734-89), as represented by his drawing at the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Poitiers (P. Verlet, Les Bronzes Dorées français du XVIIIe siècle, Paris, 1987, p. 162, fig. 195). This drawing was a source of inspiration for bronziers, such as Robert Osmond, whose after-drawing for this type of clock is at the Bibliothèque d'art et d'archéologie, Paris (no. 53 in his Livre de desseins); Osmond's name is now inextricably linked with fluted half-column clocks of this model with a ribbon-tied laurel and berry bezel and foot. The column was the basic component of an Osmond clock and was adorned with further elements such as love birds, as on the present model. A virtually-identical clock signed Osmond, the dial signed Roggen/A PARIS, is illustrated in Tardy, La Pendule Française, Vol. II, p. 259, fig. 2; another otherwise identical but surmounted by an urn instead of lovebirds was sold Christie's New York, 1 November, 1990, lot 43 ($10,000). Other signed Osmond clocks featuring the column as a central element are illustrated in J-D Augarde, Les Ouvriers du Temps, Paris, 1996, p. 25, fig. 11 and P. Kjellberg, Encyclopédie de la Pendule française du Moyen Age au XXe Siècle, Paris, 1997, pp. 185 and 231.