A Directoire gilt bronze mounted and white marble figural mantel clock by Aubert l'Ainé, circa 1795, the case with figural mounts after designs by Louis-Simon Boizot (French, 1743–1809)

the bronze mounts and enamel dial possibly attributable to François Rémond (French, 1742-1812) and Joseph Coteau (French, 1740-1801)

Saleroom notices

Please see below for lot footnote: Although there is scant information on the clockmaker and retailer Aubert L'Aine, he was presumably active at the same time as the maker Imbert L'Aine, also known as Jean Gabriel Imbert. Imbert was renowned for incorporating his movements into cases contributed to by the finest craftsmen at a time when the links between the designer and craftsmen became increasingly more important in late 18th century France. As such the diverse crafts of the horologist, the marble worker, the sculptor, the bronzier and chisleur all combined to reflect the current fashions of the day and the case of the present lot reflects some distinct similarities to a comparable clock by Imbert, although here the side figures, modelled after designs by the sculptor Louis-Simon Boizot, are cast in bronze rather than modelled in Sèvres biscuit porcelain. The sculptor Louis-Simon Boizot flourished during the turbulent period of the late 1770s. A first-rate craftsman, gifted designer and son of one of the designers at the Gobelins tapestry factory, Boizot studied at the Académie Royale in Paris and in Rome as the winner of the Prix de Rome in 1762. He became a full member of the Académie Royale in 1778 and subsequently exhibited regularly at the Paris Salon until 1800. Working primarily with small-scale and decorative sculpture and designing pieces such as gilt bronze clocks, ornamental centrepieces and figural mounts for chimneypieces, he became the artistic director of the sculpture studio at the Sèvres porcelain manufactory between 1773 and 1800 where he oversaw the design of more than one hundred figural models produced in biscuit porcelain, including the official portrait busts of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette. Amongst Boizot's none-portrait works executed at the factory are a pair of porcelain figures created in 1794 entitled 'La Leçon de l'Amour' and 'La Leçon à l'Amour', (The Lesson of Love and The Lesson to Love). In the present lot, the use of bronze to cast these figures possibly suggest the work of 'François Rémond, (French, 1742-1812) who is perhaps best associated with casting the work of Boizot for the cases of the most fashionable clock makers of the day. In addition, the distinctive floral enamelled swags to the dial of the present lot also suggest that it may have been executed by the enameller Joseph Coteau (French, 1740-1801) who again was used by makers of note involved in the production of clocks for the French nobility. A comparable clock signed by Antoine Philibert, Paris is in the Huntington Collection, San Marino (inv. no. 10.107) and is illustrated and described in S M Bennett and C Sargentson's, French Art of the Eighteenth Century at The Huntington, 2008, no.51, p. 154. A further comparable clock with gilt bronze rather than Sèvres figures is in the collection of the State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg (inv. no. EPR-876) and was exhibited in 'The Triumph of Eros: Art and Seduction in 18th Century France', held in the Hermitage Rooms at Somerset House, London between Nov 2006 – and April 2007 and illustrated and described in the catalogue for the exhibition, p. 79, plate 31 (fig. 2). Related Literature Jean-Dominique Augarde, Les ouvriers du temps: la pendule à Paris de Louis XIV à Napoleon ler, Antiquorum Editions, Geneva, 1996, p. 44.