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拍品專文
Honoré Pons, known as Pons-de-Paul, was born circa 1780 in Grenoble. The son of a musical instrument maker he moved to the rue de la Huchette, Paris, it was thought he was apprenticed to Jean-André Lepaute. Certainly he must have established his reputation quickly as in 1807 he was chosen by M. de Champagny, the Minister of the Interior, to revive the clock-making industry of St Nicolas d'Aliermont near Dieppe. Pons appears to have been very successful. He formed the clockmakers into a guild, the Fabrique d'Horlogerie de Saint-Nicolas d'Aliermont, which was directed by him to co-ordinate the industry. Their basic income came from making blancs roulants or unfinished movements, which were sold to be finished off by clockmakers in Paris. In 1819 the Fabrique gained two silver medals at the Paris exhibition for their blancs - one to the town as an encouragement and the other to Pons personally. He won another silver medal in 1823 and a gold in 1834, by which time he had played a crucial part in establishing France's clock export trade. For his services to French horology he was made a member of the Legion d'Honneur. See Charles Allix, Carriage Clocks, Antique Collectors' Club, London, 1974, pp.88-93.
Pons made very few clocks under his own name and those that he did make were often well constructed, highly individual and probably made to order. The present clock exhibits such extraordinarily complex features that one can only conclude that this was his tour de force. The dial has wonderful individuality and displays some unusual and eye-catching features. Matting is usually reserved for the dial centre but here Pons has turned the concept around to give a most arresting effect that draws the eye to the all-important chapter rings. The finely sculpted ormolu hands indicate normal time but the tail of the minute hand is appropriately fashioned as a sunburst. This has a fine pointed tip which at all times indicates to a silvered independently rotating minute ring which indicates 'true' or solar time. Owing partly to the eccentric path of the Earth's axis to the equator, the solar day does not accord with the mean day (Greenwich Mean Time). Solar time varies constantly through the year, at times being as much as 16 minutes slower or faster than Mean Time. There are only four days in the year when the two times are within a few seconds of being exactly 24 mean hours long. To be able to show this variation mechanically requires the construction of a far more complex movement centred around an equation cam which regulates the speed of the solar ring.
The smaller calendar dial beneath the main chapter ring displays a remarkably complicated juxtaposition beetween the moon, the sun and the earth. In the centre is a gilt solar hand with the ecliptic and the lunar orbit. In addition there are the apogess, perigees, perhelion and aphelion indicating the moon's orbit in relation to the sun and the earth. Lunar indications of this complexity are so unusual that one can only assume that this clock was made for a very discerning and academically-inclined client.
Pons made very few clocks under his own name and those that he did make were often well constructed, highly individual and probably made to order. The present clock exhibits such extraordinarily complex features that one can only conclude that this was his tour de force. The dial has wonderful individuality and displays some unusual and eye-catching features. Matting is usually reserved for the dial centre but here Pons has turned the concept around to give a most arresting effect that draws the eye to the all-important chapter rings. The finely sculpted ormolu hands indicate normal time but the tail of the minute hand is appropriately fashioned as a sunburst. This has a fine pointed tip which at all times indicates to a silvered independently rotating minute ring which indicates 'true' or solar time. Owing partly to the eccentric path of the Earth's axis to the equator, the solar day does not accord with the mean day (Greenwich Mean Time). Solar time varies constantly through the year, at times being as much as 16 minutes slower or faster than Mean Time. There are only four days in the year when the two times are within a few seconds of being exactly 24 mean hours long. To be able to show this variation mechanically requires the construction of a far more complex movement centred around an equation cam which regulates the speed of the solar ring.
The smaller calendar dial beneath the main chapter ring displays a remarkably complicated juxtaposition beetween the moon, the sun and the earth. In the centre is a gilt solar hand with the ecliptic and the lunar orbit. In addition there are the apogess, perigees, perhelion and aphelion indicating the moon's orbit in relation to the sun and the earth. Lunar indications of this complexity are so unusual that one can only assume that this clock was made for a very discerning and academically-inclined client.