THE CASE BY DAVID ROENTGEN, THE MOVEMENT BY PETER KINZING, CIRCA 1780

An imposing and monumental timepiece of pure architectural form, this clock by the internationally prolific cabinetmaker David Roentgen is a masterpiece of technical and decorative ingenuity and, along with a number of related pieces formerly in European royal collections, was almost certainly made for one of the French royal princesses in the reign of Louis XVI.

The archive of one of Roentgen's favoured collaborators, the ciseleur-doreur Francois Rémond provides a date for the clocks of this model, with an invoice of 1780 recording a payment of 300 livres for the gilding of a large clock with two columns.

THE PROVENANCE
With its double fluted column beneath a plain and imposing clockcase, this intricate musical clock is identical to two other clocks commissioned by French Royal patrons in the late 1780s. Three clocks of this model belonging to the comtesse de Provence (1753-1810), the comtesse d'Artois (1756-1805), and Madame Élisabeth (1764-1794), sister of Louis XVI, are recorded in post-revolution inventories. As well as the present lot, we know of an identical clock currently preserved in the Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers, Paris and a further clock preserved with the Nemours Foundation, Delaware (inv. No. 83-27).

The comtesse d'Artois' clock was confiscated from her garde-meuble in 1793 (Archives Department, Yvelines, IV Q 11) and described in a revolutionary inventory dated 13th Prairial, II (1794) in the former apartments of Marie-Antoinette at the château de Versailles, where it was stored: 'pendule mécanique organisée de flûte et forte-piano, jouant de différents airs, montée sur deux fûts de colonnes de bois d'acajou garnis de bronzes, faites par Kinzing à Neuwied, hauteur 6 pieds'. This clock was put at the disposition of the museum founded in the château, the Conservatoire Museum national du département de Seine-et-Oise à Versailles, and from there likely passed into the Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers which opened in Paris in 1802 and where it remains.

The clock belonging to Madame Élisabeth, whose musical mechanism had been repaired in October 1784, was similarly confiscated from her château de Montreuil in February 1793 and was sold in the same year (Archives Department. Yvelines, IV Q 1-): 'une grande pendule tympanisée montée sur deux colonnes de bois d'acajou cannelées, garnies de cuivre doré'. Some days after the revolutionary sale, this clock was exhibited in the Paris showroom of the dealer Mauduit where it was possibly acquired by Gouverneur Morris, who then departed Paris in 1798. Morris was known for his taste for aristocratic objects and acquisitions in the years following the revolution. This clock is today preserved in the Nemours Estate in Delaware.

The comtesse de Provence's clock was offered for sale to Louis XVIII (the former comte de Provence) in 1815 by the son of the aumônier of the comtesse who had inherited it. Interestingly, Louis XVIII declined to purchase the clock and with its subsequent ownership unknown it is almost certainly the one offered here.

A fourth clock of this model is currently preserved in the Hermitage in St. Petersburg (Эпр-6199). Previously in the Catherine Palace, this clock was part of Roentgen’s large deliveries to the Russian court throughout the 1780s. Dated by the Hermitage to 1783, this clock was in accordance with the strict neoclassical taste of Catherine the Great.
Though the musical movement has not been tested on the present example, the identical related clocks all feature compositions by Christoph Willibald Gluck who is known to have written pieces especially for Roentgen’s use.

THE MECHANISM

With its complex musical movement by Roentgen’s collaborator, the clockmaker Peter IV Kinzing (1745-1816), this clock relates to a number of timepieces by the partnership. From 1755, the independent Kinzing workshop was already producing clocks together with the Roentgens and almost all of David Roentgen's important clocks were made in collaboration with Kinzing, who also supplied Roentgen with other sophisticated mechanical works, including table pianos. Incidentally, the same year Marie-Antoinette purchased yet another clock from Roentgen and Kinzing for presentation to the Academy of Science (now Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers) in 1785, Roentgen was named Ébéniste mécanicien du Roi et de la Reine and Kinzing was named Horloger de la Reine.
Like the other musical organs used by Roentgen and Kinzing, the one on the present lot was almost certainly produced by Johann Wilhelm Weyl (1756-1813) and his brother Johann Christian Weyl (1758-1827). Musical instrument makers, producing pianos, organs and dulcimers, they collaborated closely with Roentgen & Kinzing and shared Roentgen's workshops for many years until they set up their own organ business in Neuwied in 1807.