THE CASE BY PIERRE-PHILIPPE THOMIRE, AFTER THE MONUMENT OF MININ AND POZHARSKY BY IVAN MARTOS, THE MOVEMENT BY LOUIS MOINET, FIRST QUARTER 19TH CENTURY

The pattern of this monumental 'Demidoff' clock, celebrating Russian patriotism, was commissioned by Nicolas Demidoff (Nicolai Nikitch Demidov), later Count of San Donato (d.1828) and celebrates his role in Russia's defence and the equipment of the Imperial armies. Following the end of the Patriotic Wars with Napoleon's defeat, Demidoff moved from his Tula estates to Paris and instigated the clock manufacture of Pierre-Philippe Thomire (d.1843) and his son-in-law and partner Louis-Auguste-Cesar Carbonelle. The initial commission was for six versions of the clock, but, following Demidoff's move to the Palazzo Ruspoli in Rome, a further two mantelpiece clocks, together with victorious-trophy candelabra, were commissioned in 1820. The heroic figures derive from the sculptor Ivan Petrovich Martos' design, engraved in 1808, of the Moscow monument, commissioned in 1804 by the residents of Nizhni Novgorod. The monument, unveiled on the Red Square in 1818, celebrated the foundation of the Romanov dynasty following the 1612 liberation of Moscow by the Nizhni Novgorod volunteers lead by Prince Dmitry Pozharsky and Kozma Minin (d.1616). In Paris, Demidoff occupied the former hôtel de Brancas-Lauraguais in the rue Taitbout, where Thomire had established his premises in 1804.
Another version of the clock is in the State Hermitage and illustrated in A. Gaydamak, Russian Empire, Moscow, 2000, p.86.