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The Horological Foundation Desk Diary Project.

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An Empire pendule in the shape of a statue, signed on the enamel dial Bauʃse Cour Mandar n°7, c. 1805. The movement is supported by an Egyptian terracotta caryatid who is standing with her left leg forward. She is wearing a long classical toga that reveals her breasts and a nemes headdress that is attached beneath the bust. In her upraised arms she holds a finely modelled drapery that surrounds the lower part of the dial. The rectangular base is also made of terra cotta. • The unusual design of the present clock illustrates the influence of Napoleon Bonaparte’s Egyptian campaign on French decorative arts in the late 18th and first two decades of the 19th century. The purpose of the campaign was to undermine Britain’s dominance in the area. The model derives from a statuette created in 1788 by sculptor Louis-Simon Boizot (1743-1809) for the Sèvres Royal Manufactory. A decade later, it was produced in bronze by chaser François Rémond; one such clock is in the Prague Museum of Decorative Arts. Several years later, a variation of Rémond’s clock was created – the model of the present clock. Two such examples are recorded: the first, in patinated and gilt bronze, was delivered by bronzier Claude Galle to the Elysée Palace. It is now part of the Mobilier National in Paris; the second example, in plaster, bears the signature “Bausse au Meridian boulevard d’Antin”; it is today in a private collection. • Height: 34 cm. • The maker, Louis Bausse, is not mentioned in the literature. He appears to have been named master horologist during the revolutionary period. His workshop address, n° 7 Cour Mandar, confirms this hypothesis, for the street was created in 1790. He was probably the maker of a clock of the “à l’Amérique” type, based on the model registered by Jean-Simon Deverberie on the 3rd of Pluviose, year VII, which appeared on the market several years ago. A clockmaker by the name of Bausse, but whose first name was Pierre-Guillaume, signed the movement of a clock depicting Telemachus driving his chariot under the protection of Athena; he was perhaps the son of the present clock’s maker, possibly having taken over his father’s workshop during the Empire period. • Literature: P. Kjellberg, Encyclopédie de la pendule française, Paris, 1997, p. 417 ; H. Ottomeyer and P. Pröschel, Vergoldete Bronzen, Die Bronzearbeiten des Spätbarock und Klassizismus, Munich, 1986, p. 366, fig. 5.13.4. 

 

 

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The Horological Foundation Desk Diary Project.


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