LYRE CLOCK FROM THE LATE LOUIS XVI-EARLY REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD In beautiful blue Sèvres soft-paste porcelain with chased and gilt bronze ornamentation, the polychrome enamelled dial showing the hours, minutes, seconds, days of the month, months and signs of the Zodiac, signed "Vaillant à Paris" and signed "Dubuisson cour des barnabites" under the bezel, surmounted by a radiant female mask, resting on a white marble doucine base and finished with toupie feet, fitted with a glass bell (not illustrated). H. 69 cm (27 ¼ in.) l. 30 cm (11 ¾ in.) Jacques François Vaillant, master watchmaker in 1784 Étienne Gobin, known as Dubuisson, enameller on rue de la Huchette and at Les Barnabites from 1795 onwards Provenance : Acquired from the Pendulerie, Paris. Comparative bibliography : P. Kjellberg, Encyclopédie de la Pendule Française du Moyen Age au XXe siècle, Les Éditions de l'Amateur, Paris, 1997, p.230. H. Ottomeyer, P. Pröschel et al, Vergoldete Bronzen, Munich, Vol. I, 1986, p.252, fig. 4.6.26. P. Verlet, Les Bronzes Dorés Français du XVIIIe siècle, Picard, Paris, 2003, p.41, fig. 32. A late Louis XVI-early revolutionary period ormolu-mounted and Sevres blue porcelain lyre mantel-clock, the dial by Jacques François Vaillant, the enamels by Dubuisson Porcelain lyre clocks began to be produced by the Manufacture de Sèvres in 1785. intended for the wealthiest connoisseurs of the time, and were available in four colours: turquoise blue, green, pink and red. new or beautiful blue, such as the one we are presenting here. Among the examples in beau bleu preserved in public collections are the following: A first one (cfr. Fig.1) delivered in 1828 for George IV at Carlton House by the Parisian merchant Lafontaine and which today still forms part of English royal collections (cfr. C. Jagger, Royal Clocks, The British Monarchy & its Timekeepers 1300-1900, 1983, p.130, fig.176). A second (see Fig.2), probably delivered for Louis XVI's Salon des Jeux in Versailles and now in the collections of the Musée du Louvre. (inv. O.A.R. 483); the latter is illustrated in P. Verlet Les Bronzes Dorés Français du XVIIIe siècle, Picard, Paris, 2003, p.41 fig. 32. A third (see Fig.3) is in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London (see H. Ottomeyer, P. Pröschel et al, Vergoldete Bronzen, Munich, Vol. I, 1986, p.252, fig. 4.6.26.). A last one (cf. Fig.4), from the Hodgkins collection, kept at the Walters Art Gallery in Baltimore (no. 58 2 32). A few pieces have appeared exceptionally on the public auction market; among the most recent is one from the former Segoura collection (cf. Fig.5) sold at Christie's New York on 19 October 2006, lot 124. (dial showing the signs of the Zodiac and enamel by Dubuisson) or the piece from the Dalva collection (see Fig.6) sold at Christie's New York on 22 October 2020, lot 203 (dial enamel by Dubuisson).