The clock-case cartouche, with its flower-festooned, serpentined and assymetrical ribbon-scrolls of Roman foliage entwined with oak, emblematic of hospitality, epitomises the Louis XV 'picturesque' style introduced by Juste Aurele Meissonier (d.1750) and relates to a wall-panel clock illustrated in G. Huquier's publication of his Ouevres, (fol 55). The movement is signed by Noel Baltazar (d.1786), one of whose 'cartel' clocks is recorded in the Palais de Justice, Paris