.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
Joseph de St. Germain, mâitre in 1748.
Much discussion centers around the paternity of this model of clock, which exists in two different models. The earliest one is by Charles Cressent and dates to circa 1735. Features a case cast with palm frond legs flanking a female mask, it is almost identical to this clock, see T. Dell, "The gilt bronze cartel clocks of Charles Cressent," Burlington Magazine, April 1967, p. 210-1217. A clock of this type with a pierced cresting and a leaping putto holding a scythe atop was delivered for the Dauphine at Versailles on 17 November 1745:
N.42. Une belle pendule de bronze doré d'or moulu faite par Jen-Baptiste Baillon, dont le cadran est d'émail et les aiguilles de bronze doré, portée sur deux consoles accompagnées de palmes, au milieur desquelles est un masque de femme ; sur les côtés sont des ornements en mosaïques et deux bouquets de fleurs ; le haut est terminé d'un amour tenant de sa main gauche une faux: le pied aussi de bronze doré, orné de rocailles, fleurs, plumes deux dragons et d'une tête de Borée, haute de 4 pieds avec le pied sur 14 pouces de large.
The above clock by Baillon was later recorded in the bedroom of Marie-Antoinette, see P. Verlet, Les Bronzes Dorés Français du XVIIIe Siècle, Paris, 1989, pp. 283, fig. 315. A slightly later variant of this first model features a slightly different cresting hung with flowers and crowned with a seated putto, see A. Pradère, Charles Cressent, Dijon, 2003, p. 179, cat. 200. Both of these variants were produced with three different ormolu brackets: one, as noted in the above inventory, cast with the head of Zephyr and two dragons, see Christie's, Paris, 14 December 2004, lot 240 (€283,250); one centered by a rooster, such as a barometer in the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, see Pradère, op. cit., p. 183; and one with a lion’s head, one of which is preserved at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris, see H. Ottomeyer and P. Pröschel, et al., Vergoldete Bronzen, Munich, 1986, vol. I, p. 79, fig. 1.12.6. In fact, The attribution of this clock model to Charles Cressent stems from a clock described in the catalogue of the sale of his stock in 1757:
Une pendule face de bronze sur son pied tout de bronze; elle est coeff d'un enfant sur un nuage; au pied, il y a deux dragons, avec une tête de Lyon qui sort par un trou.
The second, and decidedly more Rococo, model of this clock was produced from the mid-eighteenth century onward. With its acanthus-cast cresting and flying putto, our clock belongs to this group. Examples of this model include one in the collection of the J. Paul Getty Museum, see ibid., p. 79, fig. 1.12.7, and two illustrated Pradère, op. cit., p. 183. Although all of these clocks rest on an ormolu bracket of the rooster design, Pradère suggests that this model was also retailed with the Zephyr mask and lion’s head brackets and thus it is impossible to tell what type of bracket our clock originally had. For a further clock of this model, also lacking its bracket, see ibid., p. 181.
The clock of this model in the J. Paul Getty Museum (71 D.B. 115) has its bracket stamped by the bronzier Jean-Joseph de Saint-Germain (1719-1791) while another from the Wildenstein collection is stamped on the carcasse of the bracket by his ébéniste father Joseph de Saint-Germain, see Christie’s, London, 14-15 December 2005, lot 43. Jean-Dominique Augarde has put forward the theory that Cressent passed on the right to reproduce this model to one or the other Saint-Germain and that the son designed the new form of bracket seen on this group, which should be viewed as a collaboration between father and son, see L'Estampille/L'Objet d'Art, 'Jean-Joseph de Saint-Germain', December 1996, pp. 62-82.
Much discussion centers around the paternity of this model of clock, which exists in two different models. The earliest one is by Charles Cressent and dates to circa 1735. Features a case cast with palm frond legs flanking a female mask, it is almost identical to this clock, see T. Dell, "The gilt bronze cartel clocks of Charles Cressent," Burlington Magazine, April 1967, p. 210-1217. A clock of this type with a pierced cresting and a leaping putto holding a scythe atop was delivered for the Dauphine at Versailles on 17 November 1745:
N.42. Une belle pendule de bronze doré d'or moulu faite par Jen-Baptiste Baillon, dont le cadran est d'émail et les aiguilles de bronze doré, portée sur deux consoles accompagnées de palmes, au milieur desquelles est un masque de femme ; sur les côtés sont des ornements en mosaïques et deux bouquets de fleurs ; le haut est terminé d'un amour tenant de sa main gauche une faux: le pied aussi de bronze doré, orné de rocailles, fleurs, plumes deux dragons et d'une tête de Borée, haute de 4 pieds avec le pied sur 14 pouces de large.
The above clock by Baillon was later recorded in the bedroom of Marie-Antoinette, see P. Verlet, Les Bronzes Dorés Français du XVIIIe Siècle, Paris, 1989, pp. 283, fig. 315. A slightly later variant of this first model features a slightly different cresting hung with flowers and crowned with a seated putto, see A. Pradère, Charles Cressent, Dijon, 2003, p. 179, cat. 200. Both of these variants were produced with three different ormolu brackets: one, as noted in the above inventory, cast with the head of Zephyr and two dragons, see Christie's, Paris, 14 December 2004, lot 240 (€283,250); one centered by a rooster, such as a barometer in the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, see Pradère, op. cit., p. 183; and one with a lion’s head, one of which is preserved at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris, see H. Ottomeyer and P. Pröschel, et al., Vergoldete Bronzen, Munich, 1986, vol. I, p. 79, fig. 1.12.6. In fact, The attribution of this clock model to Charles Cressent stems from a clock described in the catalogue of the sale of his stock in 1757:
Une pendule face de bronze sur son pied tout de bronze; elle est coeff d'un enfant sur un nuage; au pied, il y a deux dragons, avec une tête de Lyon qui sort par un trou.
The second, and decidedly more Rococo, model of this clock was produced from the mid-eighteenth century onward. With its acanthus-cast cresting and flying putto, our clock belongs to this group. Examples of this model include one in the collection of the J. Paul Getty Museum, see ibid., p. 79, fig. 1.12.7, and two illustrated Pradère, op. cit., p. 183. Although all of these clocks rest on an ormolu bracket of the rooster design, Pradère suggests that this model was also retailed with the Zephyr mask and lion’s head brackets and thus it is impossible to tell what type of bracket our clock originally had. For a further clock of this model, also lacking its bracket, see ibid., p. 181.
The clock of this model in the J. Paul Getty Museum (71 D.B. 115) has its bracket stamped by the bronzier Jean-Joseph de Saint-Germain (1719-1791) while another from the Wildenstein collection is stamped on the carcasse of the bracket by his ébéniste father Joseph de Saint-Germain, see Christie’s, London, 14-15 December 2005, lot 43. Jean-Dominique Augarde has put forward the theory that Cressent passed on the right to reproduce this model to one or the other Saint-Germain and that the son designed the new form of bracket seen on this group, which should be viewed as a collaboration between father and son, see L'Estampille/L'Objet d'Art, 'Jean-Joseph de Saint-Germain', December 1996, pp. 62-82.