Exceptional Musical Clock with Complications and Painting by L. V. Fouquet

Very little is known about the artist except that he was born in Orleans in 1803 and died in 1869. After attending the School of Design in Orleans he was tutored by the French 19 century orientalist artist Alexandre Gabriel Decamps. Influenced by his tutor Fouquet’s small body of known work is largely devoted to orientalism. So this painting of the Quai De Brancas is a total departure from his genre.

Fine as the painting is, it is however overshadowed by the magnificence of the musical clock. The clock mechanism has six different elements comprised of a large square movement for the actual time with the small white dial shown on the clock tower through the canvas, the grand sonnerie movement rings the hours, quarters and halfs on six gongs, a repetition, control of the hands. The spring for the principal movement is signed and dated ‘Borel Jeune a Paris 1837’. The repetition is signed ‘Montaudon 1837 and the principal music box plays six songs. The music itself is set off at the 3/4 hour, and the hour. Gongs for the hour are on the left, gongs for the quarter hours are on the right. All the music components are contained in a wooden box be=hind the framed canvas. The painting is hinged to the top of the box. The music box is exposed by simply lifting up the bottom unhinged side of the painting. Refer to photographs

This musical clock and painting is an exceptional example of this genre pioneered first in Geneva Switzerland. It was then copied and taken to a more sophisticated and complicated level in Paris in the middle of the 19th century.

The musical clock elements have been completely restored by renowned Canadian clockmaker Raymond Saunders owner of Landmark Clocks. Mr Saunders is also a designer and builder of more than 150 customized clocks. In 1977 he was commissioned to build a steam clock for the Gastown district of Vancouver, Canada. Saunders has since built six different public steam clocks for clients such as the city of Otaru, Japan, the Indiana State Museum and a unique steam clock for Australia with 12-whistles playing the tune “Waltzing Matilda. Because of the complicated nature of the music box, a video of Mr Saunders demonstrating exactly how it works will accompany the sale of this work.

For those with more of an interest a musical clocks and paintings, reference should be made to a publication by Richard Chavigny ‘Les tableaux horloges Franco-Suisses a musique’, where this painting is shown in figures 1 and 2 on page 18.