A Louis XVI Style Gilt-Bronze and Blue Enamel Cartel Clock and Barometer

Object Description

A Louis XVI Style Gilt-Bronze and Blue Enamel Cartel Clock and Barometer, By Maison Mottheau & Fils., Paris.

This exceptional cartel clock and aneroid barometer exhibit the finest production of the bronzier Mottheau & Fils of Paris. The clock movement is by Maison Ungerer, Strasbourg. Each designed en suite in the Louis XVI style replete with neoclassical ornament. Each blue tole drum shaped body is surmounted by a flaming torch and flanked by trumpet blowing cherubic herm figures and suspended from a knotted serpent and flower coiled rope. Beneath the dials foliate swags hold musical attributes. All executed in exceptionally finely cast gilt-bronze.

The enamel barometer dial signed ‘Mottheau & fils. A Paris’.
The enamel clock dial signed ‘J & A UNGERER. Strasbourg’.
Stamped to the back ‘EM. 270’.

France, Circa 1900.

Object History

By family tradition, King Farouk I of Egypt (1920-1965).

The bronzier Maison Mottheau & Fils is famous for their ‘torchère lumineuse’ exhibited at the 1900 Paris Exposition Universelle; an ambitious and monumental tour de force executed in gilt-bronze and onyx from a design by Eugène-Frédéric Piat. As a bronzemaker, Mottheau specialised primarily in lighting fixtures, a category in which they flourished with the advent of electricity, but also supplied a wide array of functional decorations, including gilt-bronze mountings for furniture and clock cases. At the 1900 Paris Exposition Universelle, the firm displayed pieces in the Louis XVI and Art Nouveau styles and was praised as one of the foremost exhibitors, making full use of the new technology of electricity: ‘The work shown is artistic and interesting, and adds, if possible, to the reputation of this already famous house. […] The French Section shows many examples of fine work applied under the new conditions, but we doubt if a more complete success is to be recorded to the credit of any exhibitor than can be conceded to Messuers Mottheau et Fils’ (The Art Journal, The Paris Exhibition 1900 – An Illustrated Record of its Art, Architecture and Industries, London, 1900, p. 155).

Object Literature

The Art Journal, The Paris Exhibition 1900 – An Illustrated Record of its Art, Architecture and Industries, London, 1900, p. 155.

Meyer, Jonathan. Great Exhibitions – London, New York, Paris, Philadelphia, 1851-1900, Antique Collectors’ Club, (Woodbridge, UK), 2006; pps. 290, 318 pl. J72.

Object Details