Object Description
A Very Fine Gilt-Bronze Wall Clock and Matching Barometer with Sèvres Plaques.
The dial of the clock signed ‘JULIEN LEROY A PARIS’, the barometer dial signed ‘PASSEMANT AU LOUVRE’.
The eight day strike Wall Clock and its matching Barometer, both have a terminal in the form of a pineapple drop with acanthus leaf scroll detail. Above this is a Sèvres panel of a cherub in a garden, rising to a white enamelled dial with Arabic and Roman numerals flanked by cascading relief moulded fruit from a further Sèvres panel of a cherub in flight below a ribbon tied pediment.
This companion clock and barometer are fine 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.