LEPAUTE Fin du XVIIIe siècle - Chased ormolu clock with white enamelled rotating discs.
Column with laurels surmounted by an urn with a snake coiled at the top in a pinecone, detached "à la grecque" handles decorated with lion heads, base signed "Lepaute".
Dial with double rotating white enamel disk, Roman numerals for the hours and Arabic numerals for the minutes, one minute track.
Mechanical movement with key winding located in the base, hours/minutes indicated by the snake's tongue, under the base a winding square.
H. 47 cm - W. 16.5 cm - D. 16.5 cm
THE ROBERT OSMOND MODEL This clock is based on one of the preparatory drawings attributed to Robert Osmond, now in the Bibliothèque Doucet in Paris and illustrated in H. Ottomeyer, P. Proschel, Vergoldete Bronzen, Munich, 1986, p. 195 fig. 3.12.5. A flagship or emblematic model of neoclassicism, it was used by several watchmakers, such as our example by Lepaute.
A clock, the base bearing the signature of the watchmaker Lepaute (Lepaute in Paris), is shown in S. Eriksen Early neo-classicism in France, fig. 193. In 1766, in his catalog, Lepaute describes a clock with a brown patina, the dial surrounded by a snake and resting on a truncated column corresponding to our model.
Among the earliest examples of this model, in the form of a vase on a truncated column, is a work produced by the foundryman Robert Osmond and the clockmaker Lepaute in 1770, which is illustrated in H. Ottomeyer and P. Pröschel, Vergoldete Bronzen, Band I, Editions Klinkhardt & Biermann, Munich, 1986, p. 194; as well as a second one in the collections of the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris (see P. Jullian, Le style Louis XVI, Editions Baschet et Cie, Paris, 1983, p.121, fig.4); last but not least, a final clock of this type in the Musée du Petit Palais, Paris, published in Tardy, La pendule française, Des origines à nos jours, 2e partie : Du Louis XVI à nos jours, Paris, 1974, p. 289, fig.3.
THE LEPAUTE DYNASTY The House of Lepaute in Paris is the signature of two brothers, Jean-André and Jean-Baptiste Lepaute. The first (1720-1789) had married Mlle Etable de la Brière, a distinguished astronomer, in 1748, and a few years later received the title of Horloger du Roi by lodging at the Palais du Luxembourg. After a brilliant career, punctuated by several works on the research and perfection of clockmaking, he ceased his activity in 1775.
His brother, Jean-Baptiste, joined him in Paris in the mid-1740s, also receiving the title of Horloger du Roi, and after his brother retired from business, he succeeded him in the Galeries du Louvre. He ceased his activity on May 14, 1789, just two months before the unrest of the revolutionary period, but his renown meant that in 1793, he was a member of the jury responsible for deciding on questions relating to the new time system, a name forever associated with the art of clockmaking in France at the end of the Age of Enlightenment.
Estim. 12,000 - 18,000 EUR