The base of this majestic clock, a quartet of chained leopards surmounted by crowing roosters, is modeled after one of Pierre-Philippe Thomire's most important commissions, a set of three magnificent bronze and biscuit porcelain garnitures commissioned in 1784 by the City of Paris for Lafayette, Washington and Louis XVI. In commemoration of the Battle of Yorktown and the independence of the United States, these garnitures were designed with allegories of Liberty, Peace overcoming War, and the glorification of France (see E. Williamson, Les Meubles d'art du Mobilier national, Paris, 1888, vol. II). Although three examples of Thomire’s garniture were apparently executed, only one candelabrum is now known, preserved in the collection of the Louvre (obj. no. OA 5312), and residing since 1974 in its original setting in the cabinet intérieur du roi at Versailles. The queen of England is reputed to have received a fourth complete garniture, but research has been unable to confirm this (see A. de Champeaux, Dictionnaire des fondeurs, ciseleurs, modeleurs en bronze et doreurs, Paris, 1886).

The present lot is one of a number of nineteenth-century variations of Thomire’s design, here adapted entirely in bronze as a mantel clock of impressive grandeur. Its base is engraved ORWELL PARK and with the arms of Ernest George Pretyman (1859-1931) and his wife, Lady Beatrice Alice Bridgeman (1870-1952). Pretyman was a career military officer and civil servant, becoming a Member of Parliament in 1895 while retaining duties in the Royal Navy, and serving from 1915-1916 as Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade. He purchased Orwell Park, a castle built in Suffolk in the 1770s, in 1889, before marrying in 1894. The estate passed to the couple’s eldest son, who sold it in 1936, after which it became a boarding school.

For a candelabrum with the same Orwell Park provenance, also based on Thomire’s 1784 model, see the example offered Sotheby’s, Paris, 15 November 2023, lot 203. Other known nineteenth-century adaptations include a pair of candelabra signed by Alfred Beurdeley (1847-1919) and incorporating both porcelain and serpentine, sold Sotheby’s, Paris, 15 November 2023, lot 183. A three-piece clock garniture, also signed by Beurdeley, was sold Christie’s, New York, 26 October 2004, lot 404.