TIMELESS DESIGN: ‘PENDULE ASTRONOMIQUE DE PASSEMANT’
The present pedestal is profoundly influenced by the palatial astronomical clock designed by Jacques Caffiéri (1678-1755) with Philippe II Caffiéri (1714-1774), the engineer Claude-Siméon Passemant (1702-1769) and clockmaker Louis Dauthiau (1730-1809), which was ultimately presented to Louis XV at the Château de Choisy on 10 October 1753. In January 1754 it was moved to a room in Louis XV's private apartments at Versailles and henceforth known as the cabinet à pendule. Described even then as ‘un miracle de science’, the undulating, unmistakable silhouette of this iconic timepiece remained an enduring source of inspiration well into the 19th century.

A REPLICA MADE FOR LORD HERTFORD
A replica – presumed to be the first and ultimately sold at Christie's, New York, 19 April 2016, lot 200 ($425,000) - was commissioned by the 4th Marquess of Hertford and is recorded in the collection of his Paris apartment at 2 rue Laffitte. Lord Hertford was acquainted with the court of Emperor Napoleon III, having served on the judging committee for the Paris Exposition universelle of 1855 afterwhich he was made a Commander of the Legion of Honor ‘pour encouragements donnés aux beaux-arts’. He is also known to have dined as a guest of the Emperor at Fontainbleau. This privileged position at court must have enabled Lord Hertford to secure the rights to famously replicate the bureau du roi Louis XV and no doubt other pieces of French Royal furniture including the Passemant astronomical clock.

Much like his copy of the bureau du roi, the replica clock was almost certainly made in the 1850s by Carl Dreschler in partnership with Charles Crozatier, sculpteur and fondeur of bronze. Dreschler often used Crozatier’s expertise to take the molds and make the bronzes for Lord Hertford’s copy of the bureau du roi, and it is assumed the same was performed on Passement’s clock (C. Mestdagh, ‘Les copies à l’ère des premières Expositions universelles: les œuvres de Dasson et de Beurdeley, un xviiie qui continue de vivre?’, Bulletin du Centre de recherche du château de Versailles, 2015, http://crcv.revues.org/13481).

A GOLDEN AGE: 19TH CENTURY INTERPRETATION
In its replication, numerous drawings, measurements and ‘presses’, or molds would have been taken from the original and, later in the 19th century, the bronze master molds would have passed to other ébénistes as workshops and ateliers shuttered. As had been done with the bureau du roi, subsequent copies of the clock were made, notably by François Linke and Alfred Beurdeley, including an example dated 1883 by the latter (Vente Beurdeley, 6-9 May 1895, lot 37; see C. Mestdagh, L'Ameublement d'art français: 1850-1900, Paris, 2010, fig. 91, p. 97). As was the tradition in the late 19th century with the bureau du roi, leading ébénistes and fondeurs often re-imagined designs of the ancient régime, repurposing the original 18th century forms to serve late 19th century tastes and sensibility. Much like Linke re-envisioned the bureau du roi as a piano, bibliothéque and bergère, here the bronzier Leloutre transforms the clock base into a pedestal of equally palatial proportions.