| |
An important Directoire gilt bronze mounted polychrome enamel and bleu turquin and white marble skeleton clock of eight day duration with beautiful enamelled decoration and dial attributed to the preeminent enamellist Joseph Coteau. The octagonal white enamel chapter ring with black Arabic numerals for the hours and minutes and outside Republican calendar numerals 1-30 for the days of the month set within gilt lozenges, with fine gilt brass hands for the hours and minutes and a blued steel pointer for the calendar indications, with cut-out dial centre to reveal the skeletonised movement. The main chapter ring surmounted by a subsidiary lunar dial inscribed with Arabic numerals for the 29 ½ days of the lunar month and a beautifully enamelled en grisaille moon set against a gold star studded blue ground. The finely gilt and polychrome painted blue enamel case frame surmounted by Jupiter as an eagle with outstretched wings above thunderbolts, above acanthus leaves flanking the lunar dial, the main dial above a central painted medallion of the infant Cupid with Venus set within an arched frame and above a superb swinging Apollo mask pendulum, the lower frame with floral spandrels at each end supporting enamel and gilt vases above turned legs on bleu turquin marble pedestals upon a stepped white marble base on toupie feet
Paris, date circa 1794
Height 47.5 cm, width 28.5 cm, depth 12 cm.
Literature: Tardy, “Les Plus Belles Pendules Françaisesâ€, 1994, p. 84, illustrating a similar skeleton clock with enamel work by Joseph Coteau and as here with an octagonal dial, from the J-B Diette Collection and later acquired by the Richard Redding Gallery. Jean-Dominique Augarde, “Les Ouvriers du Tempsâ€, 1996, p. 103, pl. 66, illustrating a comparable skeleton clock likewise with no maker’s name, enamelled by Joseph Coteau of circa 1794, of comparable dimensions and decorated with similar motifs, likewise with a Republican 30 day calendar ring but with a subsidiary dial with Republican hours and minutes in the place of the Cupid and Venus. And p. 340, pl. 255, illustrating another similar skeleton clock, the movement by Laurent à Paris, enamelled by Coteau with the same medallion as here showing Cupid and a kneeling Venus at one end of the lower arched frame above a pair of blue enamelled covered vases but with a subsidiary dial with Republican hours and minutes in the place of the present Cupid and Venus medallion. And p. 342, pl. 256, illustrating a late Louis XVI mantle clock with movement by Kinable, enamels by Coteau and showing the same image of Cupid and the kneeling Venus as here. Kristen Lippincott, “The Story of Timeâ€, exhibition catalogue, Greenwich Maritime Museum, December 1999-September 2000, p. 149, no. 168, illustrating a similar Republican skeleton clock signed on the dial Bruel à Paris, with an additional Republican dial below the main dial, in the Musée Carnavalet.
The intricate and high quality enamel decoration compares closely with other clock cases of the period by the esteemed enamellist Joseph Coteau (1740-1801). Generally considered the finest enamel painter of his day, Coteau originated from Geneva but worked primarily in Paris, where he was received as a maître in 1778. 1780 saw his appointment as Peintre-émailleur du roi et de la Manufacture Royale de Sèvres Porcelain; for the next four years he did piecework for Sèvres while also working independently in Paris as a flower painter, specializing in enamel watchcases and clock dials. As an independent artist, he supplied dials, plaques and painted cases to the leading Parisian clockmakers including Robert Robin and Ferdinand Berthoud, both clockmakers to Louis XVI. While at Sèvres he discovered the art of jewelled enamelling (a technique that involved enamelled gold-leaf foils) to both soft and hard paste porcelain. Coteau also experimented with various polychromes, producing a blue, such as we see here, that was so rare and difficult to perfect that few of his contemporaries managed to copy.
The dial features a rare Republican calendar ring. Introduced in 1793, this new time system stipulated that the months should be divided into 30 days, days into ten hours and hours into 100 minutes. Few dials show true Revolutionary time but some, such as this example, show the new calendar divisions. However, the new time scale proved so complicated that in 1795 it was abandoned in favour of the former Gregorian system.
|
|
/images/left.gif){kind=small}
