Clocks à la Montgolfière were products of French “balloon-mania” and celebrated the first flight of the Montgolfière brothers in 1783. The first successful ascend from the gardens of Versailles took place on 19 September in front of the royal family. The balloon was constructed of cotton canvas and paper, and the riders in the basket were a duck, a cockerel, and a sheep. A few months later J.F. Pilâtre de Rozier, the world's first aeronaut, made the first free flight, accompanied by the marquis d'Arlandes, in Joseph and Étienne Montgolfière’s hot air balloon on 21 November 1783 from the gardens of the Château de la Muette. They were carried by the wind across Paris at a height of approximately 300 feet, and landed safely after twenty-five minutes, having travelled a distance of over five and a half miles.

Closely related clocks à la Montgolfière are illustrated in Tardy, La Pendule Française, Paris, 1975, vol. II, pp. 296-297, figs. 1-5, in P. Verlet, Les Bronzes Dorés Français du XVIIIe Siècle, 1987, p. 121, fig. 156, and in P.Kjellberg, La Pendule Française, Paris, 1997, pp. 206-208. A similar clock in the collection of Dr. Anella Brown was sold Sotheby Parke Bernet, New York, 23 April 1977, lot 124, while a closely related pendule à la Montgolfière with differing columnar supports in the shapes of a flaming torch and a quiver was sold Christie’s, Paris, 21 June 2006, lot 324 (€78,000). For an identical clock with the dial signed Godon see Sotheby's, Monaco, 25-26 June 1983, lot 276.