THE MOVEMENT BY JOSEPH MIGNOLET, LATE 18TH CENTURY, THE MOUNTS POSSIBLY BY FEUCHERE

Joseph Mignolet, maître in 1786.

Established in the rue Saint-Honoré and then rue Saint-Anne, Joseph Mignolet married the daughter of the horloger Léchopié, with whom he had five children - only one of whom went on to follow in his father's profession. A creditor of the duc de Richelieu, Mignolet supplied a number of clocks to the Marquis de Mirabeau, the celebrated economist and father of the famous orator, Honoré Gabriel Riqueti, comte de Mirabeau.

A clock of the same model with minor variations, the dial signed by Martin Baffert, is in the Jones Collection at the Victoria & Albert Museum, London (Acc. no. 996-1882; Tardy, La pendule française dans le monde. 2e partie : du style Louis XVI à la période Louis XVIII - Charles X, p. 50). Another clock of the same model, with a column of white marble was sold Drouot; Fraysse et Associés, Paris, 4 December 2019, lot 130. The catalogue for the sale of the contents of Mentmore Towers mistakenly describes the present lot with an urn cresting, rather than the putto seen on the present and comparable lots, but clearly describes the dial as being signed by Mignolet, and the plinth faced with billing doves.

Mentmore Towers was one of the great Rothschild buildings in England, created for Baron Mayer Amschel de Rothschild by Joseph Paxton in 1850. Designed in a grandiloquent style reminiscent of the celebrated Elizabethan prodigy houses of the 16th century such as Hardwick Hall and Montacute, the finished result was a subtle blending of Tudor, Elizabethan, and Jacobean architecture. The interior decoration and furnishings of Mentmore Towers more than matched the imposing exterior. Henry James (1843-1916) referred to a ‘sense of glory’ confronting the visitor as soon as you entered the entrance hall.

Following the death of Baron Mayer Amschel de Rothschild in 1874, Mentmore Towers passed to his daughter Hannah de Rothschild. In 1878, she married Archibald Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery, and was thereafter known as the Countess of Rosebery. Archibald Primrose was an influential politician, known for his charm, wit and charisma and served as Prime Minister from 1894-5. He was also an avid collector and added to the (already spectacular) works of art at Mentmore considerably during his lifetime. In 1977 the remarkable collection at Mentmore was sold. The sale of Mentmore has been described as a ‘turning point for the preservation movement’ (N. Jones, Architecture of England, Scotland, and Wales, London, 2005, p. 296), such was the strength of feeling associated with the dispersal of one of the most important collections in private hands, the like of which will probably never been seen again.