A LATE LOUIS XV ORMOLU MANTEL CLOCK

The present lot relates to a design by François Vion and Pierre-Antoine Foullet executed circa 1770. The design of a closely related pendule au Lion is illustrated in H. Ottomeyer and P. Pröschel, Vergoldete Bronzen, Munich, 1986, vol. I, p. 193, fig. 3.11.6. A very similar clock with similar early neoclassical garlands and a portrait medallion to the base was sold Un hotel particulier du Faubourg Saint-Germain The Collection of The Marquis and Marquise de Ravenel; Christie's, London, 21-22 November 2007, lot 129 (£36,500). As this model displays a flowered and laureled medallion on its stepped-altar plinth; while an enflamed urn with Apollonian laurels crown its timepiece, which is borne by a celestial sphere-guarding lion, it has been suggested that it evokes lyric poetry's triumph. Another version of this model is illustrated in J. Augarde, Les Ouvriers du Temps: La Pendule à Paris de Louis XVI à Napoleon Premier, Geneva, 1996, p. 54, fig. 36.