ROBERT OSMOND (1711 - 1789)

URNE CLOCK Dial signed " Robin Hger Louis XVI period Turquoise blue marble ; gilt bronze H. 53 cm, W. 36 cm, D. 26 cm This clock is richly decorated with chased and gilded bronzes. It is in the form of an urn, with a pedestal flanked by a garland of flowers forming a socket. The dial with Roman numerals is signed "Robin Hger". The clock rests on a turquoise blue marble decorated with a frieze of stylized foliage in gilt bronze. The whole is topped by a pomegranate bursting. In order to get as close as possible to Antiquity, its iconography and its pure and severe forms, which were very much in vogue around 1770, the artist chose to take a covered urn to make an object in keeping with the taste of his contemporaries. This form of antique vase, which was completely new at the time, is due to the great master bronze worker Robert Osmond, who created numerous models of clocks, which were very much in demand under Louis XVI. As early as the 1750s, Osmond made a first clock in the shape of a covered urn. His ornamental repertoire is characteristic of the "Greek taste" (fig. 1). The movement of this clock is signed "Robin horloger". He is Robert Robin (1742 - 1799), the king's clockmaker (fig.2). He distinguished himself by developing an escapement for the measurement of time. He received many orders from King Louis XVI and in 1785 the latter granted him accommodation in the Louvre. An eternal researcher, in 1777 he wrote a "memoir containing reflections on the properties of winders". In 1778, he made a mechanical clock for the king for 30,000 livres. In 1793, after the Revolution, he donated a decimal clock to the National Convention, together with a descriptive brochure on the astronomical decimal clock with seconds, winding mechanism and decimal striking. Robert Robin is a great clockmaker of the 18th century.