Lot 32

Julien Le Roy, de la Société des Arts à Paris, Height 554 mm, circa 1740
An important French Regence-Louis XV table clock with tortoiseshell veneer and "pattes de taupe" double lever escapement, as used by Julien Le Roy - with half hour/hour self strike and quarter hour/hour repeater via pull mechanism. We only know of three other clocks with this kind of escapement by Julien Le Roy.
Case: oak, ebonized, tortoiseshell veneer, ormolu mountings. Dial: enamel, gilt chapter ring. Movm.: solid brass movement, signed, 3 hammers / 2 bells, count wheel, silk suspended short pendulum.
The Regence Louis XV-style case is tapered. The body is veneered with brown tortoiseshell; the upper part is also curved and lovingly decorated with gilt strips and acanthus fittings. The top ends with a winged putto. Glazed front door with noble crest.
Julien Le Roy was one of the most outstanding clock- and watchmakers of his time and certainly played a decisive part in establishing the leading role French clockmaking had in the 18th century. He was born in Tours, and was trained under his father Pierre Le Roy. In 1699 Julien Le Roy went to Paris where he served his apprenticeship under Le Bon. He became a master in 1713, presented an equation clock to the Académie Royale des Sciences in 1717, and was appointed clockmaker to the king in 1739 (with his own rooms at the Louvre). Le Roy invented the adjustable bracket for the verge escapement wheel ("potence"), the repetition strike on springs instead of bells for pocket watches, and the "all-or-nothing" piece for repeating watches. His inventions and improvements were of such extreme importance that most watchmakers adopted them promptly for their own pieces. Later Le Roy was director of the Société des Arts; he and his son supplied the entries on watches and clocks in the encyclopaedia compiled by Diderot and d'Alembert.
Julien Le Roy’s work can be found among the world’s greatest collections including the Musées du Louvre, Cognacq-Jay, Jacquemart-André and the Petit Palais in Paris. Other examples are housed in the Château de Versailles, the Victoria and Albert Museum and Guildhall in London, Waddesdon Manor, Buckinghamshire, the Musée d’Horlogerie in La Chaux-de-Fonds, the Museum der Zeitmessung Bayer, Zurich, the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, the Musées Royaux d’Art et d’Histoire in Brussels, the Museum für Kunsthandwerck, Dresden, the National Museum in Stockholm, the Musea Nacional de Arte Antigua, Lisbon, the J. P. Getty Museum in California; the Walters Art Gallery in Baltimore and the Detroit Institute of Art.