A very important Louis XIV gilt bronze mounted Boulle engraved brass and tortoiseshell cartel clock by Nicolas Gribelin, signed on the backplate and also on an engraved brass plaque below 6 o’clock: Gribelin à Paris, housed in a magnificent case with accompanying bracket attributed to André-Charles Boulle. The finely foliate chased dial plate enclosing three winding holes - one for quarter strike sounding on two bells, one for the hour strike and the third for the going, the dial plate with blue Roman hour numerals within shaped white enamel cartouches and outer minute numerals and with a fine pair of blued steel hands for the hours and minutes. The three train movement with a pendulum, verge escapement, silk thread suspension, with one barrel for the going, another barrel for hour and half hour strike sounding on a single bell, and another barrel for the quarters strike sounding on two smaller bells. The superb case finely veneered overall in première-partie Boulle marquetry featuring engraved brass ornaments on a tortoiseshell ground, of architectural form with an arched cornice with gilt bronze borders and four gadrooned urn and foliate finials, surmounted by the figure of Minerva, the mythological war goddess who fought for just causes and became the patroness of institutions of learning and the arts, who is seated on a stool, wearing a protected tunic dress and plumed helmet and holding a spear and shield in each hand. The arched cornice mounted with mask heads at each edge above flaming finials at each corner. The sides of the case with very fine Boulle inlays after a design or inspired by Jean Bérain featuring winged female herms, mask heads, mythical creatures, birds and a butterfly amid strapwork, grotesques and arabesques, bordered at each corner by four of the Muses, the goddesses of creative inspiration in poetry, song and other arts, each Muse above vine leaves and grape clusters above foliate mounted scrolled supports on turned feet. The dial plate mounted below by the figures of Flora, to the left, and Urania, to the right who seemingly hold up the dial and sit either side of a putto above a globe flanked below by a crown and an artist’s palette and brushes. The cartel resting on an ornate bracket or cul-de-lampe with a shaped top and lambrequin frieze above four serpentine supports, each headed by rosettes above Boulle inlays to the inner sides and enclosing at centre a demi-lune back mounted with a magnificent Apollo mask above an elaborate foliate and berried gilt bronze boss
Paris, date circa 1700-10
Height 128 cm, width 46 cm, depth 20cm.
Literature: Tardy, “La Pendule Française, Ire partie, de l’Horloge Gothique à la Pendule Louis XV”, 1967, p. 98, illustrating a similarly shaped tortoiseshell and brass inlaid marquetry clock by J Mornand, Faub. Saint Antoine, Paris, in the Musée Saint-Pierre, Lyon, which though lacking the bracket has the same relief figures below the dial showing Flora and Urania flanking a globe below an enamel plaque with the maker’s name. Pierre Kjellberg, “Encyclopédie de la Pendule Française du Moyen Age au XXe Siècle”, 1997, p. 45, illustrating an important Louis XIV Boulle clock of similar overall form and with the same figures of Flora and Urania as here below the dial. And p. 48, pl. A, illustrating another Louis XIV Boulle clock with a movement by Jacques Cogniet à Paris, housed in a similarly shaped case but without the bracket, featuring below the dial the same female mounts as here but with a subsidiary moon dial in place of the globe. And p. 49, illustrating a Louis XIV Boulle mantel clock with bracket, again with the same female mounts and globe but without the putto below the dial. And p. 50, pl. B, illustrating a similarly shaped Louis XIV red horn cartel clock by Nicolas Gribelin which, as here, features Flora and Urania but without the putto below the dial and has a very similar bracket with a central Apollo mask.
The importance of this clock is as much due to the quality, ingenuity and beauty of the case and its accompanying bracket as to the maker of the movement. The latter was Nicolas Gribelin (1637-1715/9) who is regarded as one of the great watch and clockmakers of the seventeenth century. Like other leading makers of his day, Gribelin paid particular attention to the quality of his cases and in known to have frequently collaborated with André-Charles Boulle (1642-1732), who was one of the most important ébénistes of his day. Given the quality of the present case with its elaborate mounts and intricate inlays as well as its similarity with other works by Boulle, it is highly likely that this clock case and bracket came from Boulle’s own workshop.
Nicolas Gribelin was born in Blois on 27th November 1637, the son of the clockmaker Abraham Gribelin (1589-1671) Valet de Chambre-Horloger du Roi and Judith Festeau. He was received as a maître-horloger at the Faubourg Saint-Germain-des-Prés in about 1660 and then in Paris on 5th June 1675; by 1682 he was based at rue de Bussy. Like his father, Nicolas Gribelin led a distinguished career, becoming garde-visiteur to his guild (1676-78 and 1684-86) and then sometime before 1674 he was given the title of Horloger de Monsieur le Dauphin, as clockmaker to Louis XIV’s son Louis, le grand dauphin (1661-1711). When an inventory was drawn up in 1689 listing the dauphin’s possessions, it included four clocks made by Gribelin. Louis XIV, the Sun King also owned at least one of Nicolas Gribelin’s clocks, which was listed in his posthumous inventory, whilst further clocks by him were acquired by Louis XIV’s legitimised sons, Louis Auguste de Bourbon, duc de Maine and Louis-Alexandre de Bourbon, comte de Toulouse as well as by the duc de Bourbon, the maréchal-duc de Villeroy, Antoine Crozat and Nicolas Delaunay.
Today Gribelin’s work can be admired in some of the world’s finest private and public collections, notably the Musée du Louvre and Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris and at the Château de Versailles. The Mathematisch-Physikalischer Salon in Dresden, the British Museum in London, the Museum of Art, Indianapolis and the Art Institute of Chicago all own other examples from his oeuvre while, before its closure, the Uhrenmuseum, Wuppertal also owned one of his clocks.
In addition to Boulle, Nicolas Gribelin worked with another important colleague, the clockmaker Balthazar II Martinot (1636-1714) in organizing an interesting lottery in 1695. Three years before that, Balthazar II and Gilles II Martinot, Jacques Langlois and Nicolas Gribelin had attempted to form a partnership with the Abbé d’Hautefeuille in which they agreed to pay one louis d’or for each clock and watch made according to a process developed by d’Hautefeuille, who at the same time sought a patent to exploit his invention but, unfortunately the enterprise was unsuccessful.
As noted when it came to his clock cases Nicolas Gribelin often collaborated with André-Charles Boulle. André-Charles Boulle was also one of the greatest ébénistes to work for Louis XIV. Born in Paris, he came from a family of master craftsmen and artists. His father was Jean Boulle (b. c 1616), ébéniste du Roi who had lodgings in the Louvre, while his grandfather, Pierre Boulle (c. 1595-1649) had been cabinetmaker to Louis XIII and had also lived in the Louvre. Other artistic family members included his maternal aunt Marguerite Bahusche, a noted painter whose husband was the artist Jacques Bunel de Blois and was much admired by Henri IV. André-Charles was thus exposed to two generations of illustrious artists, master craftsmen, engravers and ébénistes. Boulle’s own talent was recognized by Louis XIV’s advisor Jean-Baptiste Colbert, upon whose recommendation Boulle was appointed in 1672 Premier ébéniste du Roi and in this role, he furnished many of the royal palaces, notably Versailles. In addition to the French crown and members of the court, Boulle supplied foreign royalty including Philip V of Spain.
Boulle’s name is synonymous with the type of inlaid tortoiseshell and engraved brass marquetry that we see here. Although the technique was not new, he perfected it to produce inlays of the highest quality with unprecedentedly elaborate and inventive designs. The procedure required a gift for artistic invention as well as great skills in using a fretsaw to cut out the brass and tortoiseshell sheets. These were laid one on top of one another to ensure that the cut-out pieces of brass perfectly fitted into the spaces left in the tortoiseshell and vice versa. Boulle’s furniture was often made in pairs, the areas with brass-in-tortoiseshell being known as première-partie, as we see here, while the negative was known as contre-partie which features the brass in the dominant position as the background, in which finely shaped tortoiseshell fillets and panels were then inlaid.
Boulle created a variety of furniture as well as complete clock cases and accompanying bracket supports, which are often referred to as cul-de-lampe. Boulle’s workshop was housed in the Palais du Louvre, not far from the Paris lodgings of the influential artist and royal designer Jean Bérain (1640–1711), with whom he often collaborated. Bérain, who was responsible for designing costumes, stage sets, and royal ceremonies at the Académie Royale de la Musique since 1680, produced a series of ingenious creations that featured delightful, light-hearted, whimsical, and strictly symmetrical decoration known as grotesques, of which similar designs featured here are included in the publication Ornament Designs Invented by J. Berain (of which there is a copy in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York).
Despite his success and the high demand for his work, Boulle was often in financial difficulties, largely due to his passion for old prints and drawings, some of which inspired his own works. Sadly, his art collection, along with much of his stock was destroyed in a fire in 1720. Following the disaster, Boulle continued to work up until 1726, when his business was succeeded by his sons Jean (1680-1744), Pierre (c. 1682-1741), André-Charles (1685-1745) and Charles-Joseph (1688-1754), through whom the tradition of excellence and supreme craftsmanship was passed down to his grandson. Boulle’s influence was extensive and long lasting; contemporaries throughout Europe imitated his marquetry as did later craftsmen, but none were able to match the perfection of André-Charles Boulle original work.
In addition to the clock in the Musée Saint-Pierre, Lyon (cited above in Tardy), the same figures of Flora and Urania appear on other clocks of the period and, may also do so, adorning a Boulle clock that features in Watteau’s famous oil painting L’Enseigne de Gersaint of 1721 (Charlottenburg Palace, Berlin).