A LOUIS XVI ORMOLU STRIKING MANTEL CLOCK

Robert Osmond, maître in 1746 Charles-Nicolas Dutertre, maître in 1758.

The impressive model of this clock conceived in the elegant goût grec was almost certainly first executed by Robert Osmond. Maître-fondeur en terre et sable from 1746 and appointed juré des fondeurs in 1756, Osmond often signed his pieces. Influenced by the bronziers Caffieri, Osmond was one of the first to interpret the new neo-classical style. His work was much in demand among sophisticated collectors and aristocratic patrons. As a result, his atelier flourished in the early 1760s. Assisted by his nephew Jean-Bapiste Osmond, maître-fondeur in 1764, who succeeded him on his death in 1789, the Osmonds included most of the avant-garde elite of French society amongst their clients.
Several clocks of this model are recorded in the eighteenth century. The first, with a movement signed by Julien Le Roy, was purchased by the celebrated collector and arbiter of taste Ange-Laurent Lalive de Jully (1725-1779) around 1764. It is described in the sale of his collection on 5 March 1770, standing on the cartonnier of the bureau plat now at Chantilly:'il y a dessus une pendule en forme de vase, dont le mouvement est de Julien Le Roi'. That clock was subsequently sold at Christie's London, 7 December 1995, lot 79 (£54,300).

In 1777 another clock of this model is recorded in the inventory of the hôtel particulier duc de La Villiere's in the Place de la Concorde. The third example is recorded in 1787 at the Palais de l'Elysée, at that date occupied by Nicolas Beaujon, banquier de la Cour and now the résidence of the French President. The clockmaker Robin supplied the movement for a clock acquired by the Garde-Meuble de la Couronne which is recorded in 1788 in the bedroom of Madame Thierry de Ville d'Avray, wife of the Intendant du Garde-Meuble (illustrated in J. D. Augarde, Les Ouvriers du Temps, Geneva, 1996, p. 255, fig. 200).