A Sèvres Style Porcelain Mantel Clock by Raingo Frères

Object Description

A Louis XVI Style Gilt-Bronze and Sèvres Style Porcelain Mantel Clock, by Raingo Frères, Paris. The porcelain panels signed by Léonard Abel Schilt.

The movement stamped ‘Raingo Frères, Paris’.
The porcelain panels signed ‘Schilt de Sèvres’ for Léonard Abel Schilt.
The reverse of the ormolu mounts stamped ‘R F ro P F. 74’.

The twin train movement with Brocot escapement and suspension, sounding on a bell.

Of impressive size, this fine gilt-bronze and Sèvres style porcelain clock is in the form of an ovoid shaped Bleu Céleste ground porcelain vase with hand painted reserves and gilt-bronze handles, surmounted by a seated putto and inset with a circular 4 1/2 inch porcelain dial with Roman numerals and Breguet hands; the vase flanked by seated excogitative putti and raised on a plinth base mounted with finely painted porcelain panels of putti at play, above a guiulloche running pattern frieze and put down on flattened toupie feet.

Léonard Abel Schilt was a celebrated figure painter from the great Shilt dynasty of porcelain painters, active since 1818 at Sèvres. He is recorded at the national manufactory in the years 1877-1878 and 1891-1893. Schilt also maintained an independent atelier in Paris and was a noted Salon and Exposition exhibitor throughout the late 19th century.

French, Circa 1860.

Object History

Provenance

Maison Leroux, Orchies, en région Nord Pas de Calais, France.

Maison Leroux was the home of Alphonse Henri Eugène Leroux (1866-1947) founder of the famous Chicorée Leroux company.

Raingo Frères

Little is known about the French clockmaker and bronzier Raingo, who almost certainly apprenticed in Paris circa 1790. He moved to Belgium, circa 1800, probably for political reasons, and from the signatures on some of his clocks, it is known that he worked in Gand and Tournay. Later, in 1823, he is recorded as being clockmaker to the duc de Chartres.

Sèvres

The Sèvres Porcelain manufactory was founded to the east of Paris in the disused royal château of Vincennes, late in 1739-40.

It was not until 1756 that it moved to the village of Sèvres, west of Paris, strategically placed en route to King Louis XV’s palace of Versailles. Here it was also adjacent to Louis’s mistress Madame de Pompadour’s own château at Bellevue.

Important designers and influential artistic directors were always at the forefront of Sèvres’s innovation. Famous artists who designed for Sèvres have included Louis-Simon Boizot, Théophile Fragonard, Hector Guimard, Serge Poliakoff , Auguste Rodin and Louise Bourgeois. One of the most influential artists was Albert Ernest Carrier-Belleuse who became artistic director in 1876 and was famed for his designs.

Object Details