A LATE LOUIS XV ORMOLU AND PATINATED BRONZE MANTEL CLOCK

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 bronzier Philippe Caffiéri, Osmond was one of the first to interpret the new neoclassical 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-Baptiste 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, and again at Christie's, London, 13 June 2002, lot 79. In 1777 another clock of this model is recorded in the inventory of the hôtel particulier of the duc de La Villière 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 residence 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, see illustrated in J.-D. Augarde, Les Ouvriers du Temps, Geneva, 1996, p. 255, fig. 200. A clock by Osmond of this model was sold Christie's, New York, 20 April 2007, lot 25 ($78,000).