Bonhams 1793 : A Louis XIV style gilt bronze mounted brass and tortoiseshell inlaid Boulle pedestal clockG & N Passeratfourth quarter 19th century

A Louis XIV style gilt bronze mounted brass and tortoiseshell inlaid Boulle pedestal clock. G & N Passerat. second half 19th century

24 Jan 2013 10:00 EST New York
Continental Furniture & Decorative Arts
Back to auction 20532

Property from the Estates of Milton and Marilyn Myers, Hollywood, Florida

A Louis XIV style gilt bronze mounted brass and tortoiseshell inlaid Boulle pedestal clock
G & N Passerat
fourth quarter 19th century

The clock with domed case with Cupid surmount, the gilt dial set with enamel plaquettes, with an additional plaquette signed Mynuel / A Paris, above a waisted support fronted by a figure of Chronos, on square tapering feet, the pedestal with verde antico marble top above a drapery-hung frieze, on square tapering supports headed by ram's mask clasps, on toupie feet, the back stamped G & N PASSERAT / PARIS.
clock height 38 3/4in (98.5cm); base height 45 1/2in (115.5cm); width 21in (53.5cm); depth 12 1/2in (31.75cm)

Sold for US$ 31,250 inc. premium

Footnotes

This clock is based on the model L'Amour vainqueur du Temps (Love Triumphing over Time) by André Charles Boulle (1642-1732). Also known as the Pendule au Temps Couché, it was first created in the 1690s for Nicolas Desmarets (1648-1721), a nephew of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, Louis XIV's Minister of Finance. The present model is known as the "richer version," similar to those in the Wallace Collection (F43 and F55) and the J. Paul Getty Museum (71.DB.55). Boulle employed the device of Chronos in several other clocks but without the figure of Eros holding the stolen scythe, for example in the clock made for the Elector Palantine of the Rhine, Johann Wilhelm (Mannheim Castle, Baden-Württemberg).

The present model differs from the period ones in the figure of Eros, which seems to be an invention of the 19th-century bronzier, and the pedestal base. Although Boulle did not associate one particular pedestal base with this clock (in fact, his original drawing showed it on a wall bracket), none of the pedestals of the extant examples are similar to this base. It could well be a pastiche of motifs taken from Boulle's work, or perhaps a model taken from an 18th-century cabinetmaker such as Etienne Levasseur.

N. Passerat was an ébéniste en pendules who established his business in Paris in 1856. In 1885, he was joined by his sons, G. and E. Passerat, and by the end of the century his sons were running the firm on their own. The Passerats exhibited clocks and cabinet furniture in the 1878 and 1889 Expositions universelles, winning a bronze medal in the first, and a silver medal in 1889.

Literature:
Peter Hughes, French Eighteenth-Century Clocks and Barometers in the Wallace Collection, The Trustees of the Walace Collection, 1994, pp. 18-19

Gillian Wilson, et al, European Clocks in the J. Paul Getty Museum, The J. Paul Getty Museum, 1996, pp. 20-21

Denise Ledoux-Lebard, Le Mobilier français du XIXe siècle, Les éditions de l'amateur, 1989, p. 516