A small bracket clock from the Parisian workshop of David Roentgen
Mahogany with ormolu and brass mountings, glass cover and black enamelled metal. With the original brass and blued steel mechanism. Eight-day movement with white enamel dial, original pendulum with thread suspension, hourly and half-hourly striking to a bell, repetition and date aperture. Portico clock with two demi-columns on a tall, stepped plinth. The architrave supporting a gallery with six miniature urns and a hinged handle. With owner's signature "de Maismont" in ink to the underside. Museum-restored, in working order. H 29.6, W 17.4, D 12.5 cm.
Attributed to Johann Gottlieb Frost, c. 1785 - 90.
In the spring of 1779, David Roentgen received the title "Mécanicien privilégié du Roi et de la Reine" from the French King Louis XVI. A few months later, he moved into a property in Paris and hired Johann Gottlieb Frost as managing director. In May 1780, David Roentgen bought the master craftsman's licence from the Parisian guild of craftsmen and was then allowed to offer his own products on the Parisian market. He called his shop in the Rue de Grenelle "A la ville de Neuwied". In December 1785, Jean Gottlieb Frost, who had meanwhile established himself in Paris, took over the business and moved it to Rue Croix des Petits-Champs. After the Revolution in 1789, he had to file for bankruptcy and was unable to regain a foothold as an ebenist until his death in 1814. His "German" range of goods was no longer popular during the Revolutionary Wars.
The last owner of the small clock, known by his signature on the underside, was the royalist Alexandre Fenaux de Maismont, a brigadier in the guard of King Louis XVIII's corps and cavalry captain. He fell on 31 August 1823 during the conquest of the island of Trocadero off Cadiz, which ended the Spanish Revolution.
Provenance
Alexandre Fenaux de Maismont (1788 - 1823).
Parisian private collection.
Literature
A similar table clock with a movement marked St. Petersburg is housed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art New York, acc.no. 2002.237.
For more on David Roentgen and Johann Gottlieb Frost, see: Stiegel, Präzision und Hingabe. Möbelkunst von Abraham und David Roentgen, Berlin 2007, no. 6, p. 72 ff.
Cf. advertisment of Jean Gottlieb Frost from 27th December 1785 (in: Fabian, Kinzing + Roentgen Uhren aus Neuwied, Bad Neustadt 1983, p. 420).
For similar clocks of this type from the time around 1785 cf. ibid. no. 85, for example the bracket clock on the chest of drawers in the David Collection in Copenhagen and several well-known floor clocks with similar structure under no. 44 ff.
Exhibitions
"Möbel à la Roentgen. Inspirationen aus der Neuwieder Manufaktur", Roentgen-Museum Neuwied 2023 (not in the catalogue).