LATE LOUIS XVI-EARLY REVOLUTIONARY LYRE CLOCK In fine blue Sèvres soft-paste porcelain, with chased and gilded bronze ornamentation, the polychrome enamelled dial showing hours, minutes, seconds, days of the month, months and signs of the Zodiac, signed "Vaillant à Paris" and signed "Dubuisson cour des barnabites" under the bezel, surmounted by a radiant female mask, resting on a white marble doucine base and finished with toupie feet, fitted with a glass bell (not illustrated). H.:69 cm (27 ¼ in.) l.:30 cm (11 ¾ in.) Jacques François Vaillant, master watchmaker in 1784 Étienne Gobin, known as Dubuisson, enameler on rue de la Huchette and at Les Barnabites from 1795. Provenance : Acquired from Pendulerie, Paris. Comparative bibliography : P. Kjellberg, Encyclopédie de la Pendule Française du Moyen Age au XXe siècle, Les Éditions de l'Amateur, Paris, 1997, p.230. H. Ottomeyer, P. Pröschel et al, Vergoldete Bronzen, Munich, Vol. I, 1986, p.252, fig. 4.6.26. P. Verlet, Les Bronzes Dorés Français du XVIIIe siècle, Picard, Paris, 2003, p.41, fig. 32. A late Louis XVI-early revolutionary period ormolu-mounted and Sevres blue porcelain lyre mantel-clock, the dial by Jacques François Vaillant, the enamels by Dubuisson Porcelain lyre clocks were first produced by the Manufacture de Sèvres in 1785. intended for the wealthiest connoisseurs of the time, and were available in four colors: turquoise blue, green, pink and bleu nouveau or bleu nouveau or beau bleu, such as the one shown here. Among the beau bleu examples preserved in public collections, let us recall : A first one (cfr. Fig.1) delivered in 1828 for George IV at Carlton House by the Parisian merchant Lafontaine, and still in English royal collections today (cfr. C. Jagger, Royal Clocks, The British Monarchy & its Timekeepers 1300-1900, 1983, p.130, fig.176). A second (cfr. Fig.2), probably delivered for Louis XVI's Salon des Jeux in Versailles and now in the collections of the Musée du Louvre (inv. O.A.R. 483); the latter is illustrated in P. Verlet Les Bronzes Dorés Français du XVIIIe siècle, Picard, Paris, 2003, p.41 fig. 32. A third (cfr. Fig.3) is in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (cfr. H. Ottomeyer, P. Pröschel et al, Vergoldete Bronzen, Munich, Vol. I, 1986, p.252, fig. 4.6.26.). A final one (cfr. Fig.4), from the Hodgkins collection, now in the Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore (no. 58 2 32). A few pieces appear exceptionally on the public sales market; among the most recent is one from the former Segoura collection (cfr. Fig.5) sold at Christie's New York, October 19, 2006, lot 124. (dial indicating the signs of the Zodiac and enamel by Dubuisson) or the piece from the Dalva collection (cfr. Fig.6) sold at Christie's New York, October 22, 2020, lot 203 (dial enamel by Dubuisson).