Pendule à cartel et baromètre en porcelaine de Sèvres de style Louis XVI

Description

A Fine Louis XVI Style Gilt-Bronze and Sèvres Porcelain Mounted Cartel Clock and Aneroid Barometer En Suite, After the Models by Martinout and Passemant.

The clock having a circular eight-day twin-train movement with anchor escapement Brocot suspension, striking on a bell.
The backplate stamped with S. Marti et Cie, MEDAILLE DE BRONZE roundel over number 72, A.C roundel and number 2671.
The clock dial inscribed dial inscribed ‘Martinout, A Paris’.
The barometer dial inscribed ‘PASSEMANT, AU LOUVRE’.

The clock and barometer each have a gilt-bronze case inset with finely painted Sevres style porcelain panels depicting science and astronomy. The clock has a convex white enamel dial with Roman numerals and Arabic minutes to the outer track; inscribed to the centre ‘Martinout, A Paris’, within an acanthus cast bezel. The barometer has a concealed aneroid mechanism and a circular convex white enamel register, inscribed ‘PASSEMANT, AU LOUVRE’ to the centre, within a concentric scale calibrated in barometric inches and with weather observations in French to the outer track; with a blued steel pointer set behind convex glass fitted with a central brass recording hand.

This fine companion clock and barometer are nineteenth century examples of a pair originally supplied to Madame du Barry in 1769 by the marchand mercier Simon-Philippe Poirier. They were then described as

‘Un Baromètre & Thermomètre, de Passement, montés très richement en bronze dorés d’or moulu et ornés de trois plaques de porcelaine de france à Enfants en miniature cy 10561I.’

It is interesting to note that the original design was made to allow either of three porcelain plaques, depicting putti with astrolabes. Eighteenth century models are now in the permanent collection of the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, the Musée du Louvre in Paris, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

Français, Circa 1870.