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拍品專文
This spectacular astronomical clock, with three finely cast Atlas figures literally holding aloft the heavens, a glass globe engraved with the constellations, although unsigned, can be firmly attributed to the celebrated Mécanicien-astronome Antide Janvier (1751-1835), on the basis of an almost identical example by Janvier illustrated in N. Tieger, Horloges Anciennes, Milan, 1990, pp. 184-5. The clock offered here has the distinction of having the signs of the zodiac engraved on to the glass sphere, whereas the example illustrated in Tieger indicates the zodiac on an engraved steel ring surrounding the planetary movement.
Janvier was a true prodigy in horology, creating his first planetary sphere when he was only 15, which in 1768 he showed to the Academy of Sciences and the Letters in Besançon. In 1784 he was awarded the title of horloger-mécanicien de Monsieur, frère du roi and later that year he presented a pair of spheres to Louis XVI. His two great masterpieces were two four-faced astronomical clocks supporting mechanical spheres, one of which was purchased by Louis XVI in 1789, and the other is currently in a private collection (see J-D. Augarde & J.N. Ronfort, Antide Janvier Mcanicien-astronome Horloger Ordinaire du Roi, Paris, 1998 and A. Kugel, Sphères, L'Art des Mécaniques Célestes, exh. cat., Paris, 2002).
Janvier was a true prodigy in horology, creating his first planetary sphere when he was only 15, which in 1768 he showed to the Academy of Sciences and the Letters in Besançon. In 1784 he was awarded the title of horloger-mécanicien de Monsieur, frère du roi and later that year he presented a pair of spheres to Louis XVI. His two great masterpieces were two four-faced astronomical clocks supporting mechanical spheres, one of which was purchased by Louis XVI in 1789, and the other is currently in a private collection (see J-D. Augarde & J.N. Ronfort, Antide Janvier Mcanicien-astronome Horloger Ordinaire du Roi, Paris, 1998 and A. Kugel, Sphères, L'Art des Mécaniques Célestes, exh. cat., Paris, 2002).
