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Lot Essay
This pair of Sphinxes closely relates to André-Charles Boulle's patterns designed for ‘obelisk’ chenets and cartel clocks, engraved by Mariette around 1707 in Nouveau Desseins de Meubles et Ouvrages de Bronze et de Marqueterie Inventés et gravés par André-Charles Boulle, chez Mariette.
The modelling of the figures is identical in shape and scale to the those visible on his ‘pendule aux sphinxes’, such as a clock with a later movement by the English clock-maker Benjamin Vulliamy. in the Royal Collection, Windsor Castle (RCIN 30011) or in another example, now in the collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Arts (Rogers Fund, 58.53a-c). The presence of The 'C' Couronné Poinçon, a tax mark in use between March 1745 and February 1749 on any alloy containing copper, visible on the present pair, indicates it was probably retailed at these dates, although cast in André-Charles Boulle's workshop earlier in the same century.
The modelling of the figures is identical in shape and scale to the those visible on his ‘pendule aux sphinxes’, such as a clock with a later movement by the English clock-maker Benjamin Vulliamy. in the Royal Collection, Windsor Castle (RCIN 30011) or in another example, now in the collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Arts (Rogers Fund, 58.53a-c). The presence of The 'C' Couronné Poinçon, a tax mark in use between March 1745 and February 1749 on any alloy containing copper, visible on the present pair, indicates it was probably retailed at these dates, although cast in André-Charles Boulle's workshop earlier in the same century.