Lot Essay
The elegant plinth-supported 'vase' clock of lyre form in the manner of a poetic trophy is conceived in the Louis XVI 'antique' or 'Grecian' manner of the 1770's. With its black brass-enriched frame, oak baguette enrichments and festive thyrsus-like finial, it derives in part from the celebrated cartonnier-supported 'vase' clock designed by the architect Louis-Joseph Le Lorrain in the late 1750's for Ange-Laurent de Lalive de Jully (see: S. Eriksen, Early Neo-Classicism in France, London, 1974, fig. 89). The clock-face, which is framed by a pearled ribbon-guilloche, hangs like a watch in a case-holder, from a bowed ribbon-tie. The latter is suspended between the acanthus-scrolled handles, whose form relates in part to a vase, which featured in Joseph Vien's illustration for the Mascarade Turque, 1748 (see: S. Eriksen op. cit., pl. 295).
The clock features on the cartonnier of a Louis XVI ebony-veneered bureau-plat (see: A. Pradère, French Furniture Makers, London, 1989, fig. 342), signed by Philippe-Claude Montigny (elected Maître èbèniste 1766) of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, who was described in the Almanach Dauphin as 'One of the most highly recommended for furniture in tortoiseshell, ebony or brass of the type made by the celebrated Boulle'. His trade label also announced that he made clockcases of various sorts.
A clock of related pattern with a movement signed Gille L'Aine à Paris (Pierre Gilles-Quentin, recorded Rue aux Ours, 1765-75 and Rue St. Martin, 1774-8), was sold by the Trustees of the late Dowager Viscountess Harcourt in these Rooms, 6 July 1961, lot 5.
The clock may have formed part of the furnishings acquired for Bedford House, London by Francis, 5th Duke of Bedford (d. 1802), who shared the Francophile tastes of George, Prince of Wales, later King George IV, and during the 1780's employed the Prince's architect Henry Holland (d. 1806) to aggrandise the house
The clock features on the cartonnier of a Louis XVI ebony-veneered bureau-plat (see: A. Pradère, French Furniture Makers, London, 1989, fig. 342), signed by Philippe-Claude Montigny (elected Maître èbèniste 1766) of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, who was described in the Almanach Dauphin as 'One of the most highly recommended for furniture in tortoiseshell, ebony or brass of the type made by the celebrated Boulle'. His trade label also announced that he made clockcases of various sorts.
A clock of related pattern with a movement signed Gille L'Aine à Paris (Pierre Gilles-Quentin, recorded Rue aux Ours, 1765-75 and Rue St. Martin, 1774-8), was sold by the Trustees of the late Dowager Viscountess Harcourt in these Rooms, 6 July 1961, lot 5.
The clock may have formed part of the furnishings acquired for Bedford House, London by Francis, 5th Duke of Bedford (d. 1802), who shared the Francophile tastes of George, Prince of Wales, later King George IV, and during the 1780's employed the Prince's architect Henry Holland (d. 1806) to aggrandise the house