Live Auction 16024Interiors
A FRENCH GILTWOOD AND COMPOSITION MUSICAL FIGURAL AND SINGING BIRD AUTOMATON CLOCK
Lot 94 THE PROPERTY OF A GENTLEMAN

A FRENCH GILTWOOD AND COMPOSITION MUSICAL FIGURAL AND SINGING BIRD AUTOMATON CLOCK

ALMOST CERTAINLY BLAIZE BONTEMS, PARIS, THIRD QUARTER 19TH CENTURY

Closed13 September 2018

Price Realised

GBP 4,375

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A FRENCH GILTWOOD AND COMPOSITION MUSICAL FIGURAL AND SINGING BIRD AUTOMATON CLOCK
ALMOST CERTAINLY BLAIZE BONTEMS, PARIS, THIRD QUARTER 19TH CENTURY
The violin-playing figure beside a revolving glass rod waterfall, the birds perched on various branches, singing and some hopping from branch to branch when playing, the enamel dial with Roman hours, twin barrel movement with recoil anchor escapement, Brocot suspension and count wheel strike on bell, the back plate stamped with 'Japy Freres' trade stamp, separate musical movement to base, the reverse to tree stamped 'B O/ N/ T', with paper label to inside of case for '?. E. VINCENT & CO./ CHRONOMETERS/ WATCH & CLOCK MAKERS.....MADRAS', also inscribed '1851'
29 ½ in. (75 cm.) high; 23 ½ in. (60 cm.) wide; 12 in. (30.5 cm.) deep

Specialist note

Blaise Bontems (b.1814) was enthralled by birds and their song from an early age. After an apprenticeship in Vosges, he set up on his own in 1849 in Paris, exhibiting at the Great Exhibition in London in 1851. His automatons were referred to by the jurors at the exhibition as 'toys for adults rather than children' and were priced at £12 or for the rarer examples including a clock, £18 (see D. Roberts, Mystery, Novelty and Fantasy Clocks, Atglen, 1999, p. 209). By the 1860s, his success was international and ninety percent of his automata were exported, to which the label inside the present clock would seem to attest.