Lot Essay
Michel-Pierre Barancourt, maître-horloger in 1779, recorded at 9 rue d'Angouleme. He counted among his clients the court banker Nicolas Beaujon, the Comte de Bavière, Marquis du Breteuil, and the Duchess de Saxe-Teschen. He used the gilder Noel and after the latter's bankruptcy, François Rémond.
A number of clocks of this model with porcelain plaques are known. One, the dial signed Lepaute de Belle fontaine à Paris is in the Jones Collection, Victoria and Albert Museum, London and illustrated O. Brackett, Catalogue of the Jones Collection, Part I - Furniture, London, 1922, no. 255, pl. 58. Another, signed by Le Paute and Jean-Zacharie Berne, was sold in the Bensimon sale, Paris, 18-19 November 1981, lot 124. Other very similar examples were sold Drouot, Paris, 7 December 1978, lot 91 and Paris, 25 April 1979, lot 60
There is a similar but smaller clock in the Wallace Collection (R. Savill, The Wallace Collection Catalogue of Sèvres Porcelain, London, 1988, vol. II, pp.860-863).
This group of clocks appear to have been made to be mounted with porcelain plaques. There are very few references in the records of the Sèvres factory to such plaques and it would seem likely that other French factories were making porcelain plaques in the Sèvres style towards the end of the 18th Century and that in some cases the earlier plaques were replaced in the 19th Century.
It is interesting to note a table in the Wallace Collection (F314), discussed by R. Savill, op. cit., pp.895-897, the top of which is centred by a plaque also with the MLC cypher in very similar script. This was read as being the cypher of Marie-Therèse-Louise de Savoie-Carignan, princesse de Lamballe (1749-92) when the table was exhibited at the Palais de Trianon, Paris, 1867, no. 110. This plaque is now thought to have been decorated in the 19th Century, its decoration based on that of a Sèvres service of 1773-74 presented by Louis XV to Maria Carolina Luisa, Queen of Naples which is centred by the monogram CL.
A commode by Dester mounted with Paris porcelain plaques from the duc d'Angoulême's factory, originally commissioned by the comte d'Artois for the palais du Temple, was sold by Lord Plymouth in these Rooms 17 June 1987, lot 70. It is also known that jewelling was not confined to Sèvres as witnessed by a pair of vases in the Louvre enamelled by Coteau and made in the comte d'Artois' factory in Paris (P. Verlet, Les Bronzes Dorés Français, 1987, p.125, fig.162.
The cypher MLC may be that of Marie-Therèse-Louise de Savoie-Carignan, Princesse de Lamballe (1749-92). A secretaire à abattant by Leleu with the cypher MLC is illustrated A. Pradère, French Furniture Makers, London, 1989, p.339, fig.395.
A number of clocks of this model with porcelain plaques are known. One, the dial signed Lepaute de Belle fontaine à Paris is in the Jones Collection, Victoria and Albert Museum, London and illustrated O. Brackett, Catalogue of the Jones Collection, Part I - Furniture, London, 1922, no. 255, pl. 58. Another, signed by Le Paute and Jean-Zacharie Berne, was sold in the Bensimon sale, Paris, 18-19 November 1981, lot 124. Other very similar examples were sold Drouot, Paris, 7 December 1978, lot 91 and Paris, 25 April 1979, lot 60
There is a similar but smaller clock in the Wallace Collection (R. Savill, The Wallace Collection Catalogue of Sèvres Porcelain, London, 1988, vol. II, pp.860-863).
This group of clocks appear to have been made to be mounted with porcelain plaques. There are very few references in the records of the Sèvres factory to such plaques and it would seem likely that other French factories were making porcelain plaques in the Sèvres style towards the end of the 18th Century and that in some cases the earlier plaques were replaced in the 19th Century.
It is interesting to note a table in the Wallace Collection (F314), discussed by R. Savill, op. cit., pp.895-897, the top of which is centred by a plaque also with the MLC cypher in very similar script. This was read as being the cypher of Marie-Therèse-Louise de Savoie-Carignan, princesse de Lamballe (1749-92) when the table was exhibited at the Palais de Trianon, Paris, 1867, no. 110. This plaque is now thought to have been decorated in the 19th Century, its decoration based on that of a Sèvres service of 1773-74 presented by Louis XV to Maria Carolina Luisa, Queen of Naples which is centred by the monogram CL.
A commode by Dester mounted with Paris porcelain plaques from the duc d'Angoulême's factory, originally commissioned by the comte d'Artois for the palais du Temple, was sold by Lord Plymouth in these Rooms 17 June 1987, lot 70. It is also known that jewelling was not confined to Sèvres as witnessed by a pair of vases in the Louvre enamelled by Coteau and made in the comte d'Artois' factory in Paris (P. Verlet, Les Bronzes Dorés Français, 1987, p.125, fig.162.
The cypher MLC may be that of Marie-Therèse-Louise de Savoie-Carignan, Princesse de Lamballe (1749-92). A secretaire à abattant by Leleu with the cypher MLC is illustrated A. Pradère, French Furniture Makers, London, 1989, p.339, fig.395.