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Lot Essay
Balthazar Lieutaud was the son of the ébéniste Charles Lieutaud, maker of clocks and part of the privileged enclos of Saint-Jean de Latran. Living on the Ile de la Cité in the Rue de la Pelleterie, and later in the rue d'Enfer, he regularly worked for the most celebrated clock-makers including Balthazard, Voisin, Lepaute and Robin. His régulateurs were embellished with mounts of the foremost bronziers, including Caffiéri Jeune, Charles Grimpelle and Edme Roy. His chef d’oeuvre, a régulateur du parquet with a movement of the equation of time and now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, shares the same lush floral and shell mount above the base (2016.28). In addition to cartel clocks and regulators of the most pure rococo and neo-classical forms, Lieutaud also made furniture such as secretaires, commodes and encoignures.
The form of the present clock was one that Lieutaud apparently used almost as a template as it appears in varying degrees of richness to both the veneers and the mounts. They include one with a solid veneered case but virtually identical mounts in the Museé des Arts et Métiers, Paris, with works by Duhamel (Tardy, La Pendule Française, Paris, 1962, p.88) another from the collection of Barons Nathaniel and Alphonse de Rothschild; Christies, London, 8 July 1997, lot 207 and a simpler version offered at Christie’s, Amsterdam, 14-16 December, 2010, lot 436.
The form of the present clock was one that Lieutaud apparently used almost as a template as it appears in varying degrees of richness to both the veneers and the mounts. They include one with a solid veneered case but virtually identical mounts in the Museé des Arts et Métiers, Paris, with works by Duhamel (Tardy, La Pendule Française, Paris, 1962, p.88) another from the collection of Barons Nathaniel and Alphonse de Rothschild; Christies, London, 8 July 1997, lot 207 and a simpler version offered at Christie’s, Amsterdam, 14-16 December, 2010, lot 436.