Cartel barometer (one of a pair)
The original repeating movement of the wall clock, now replaced, was very practical. It would strike the nearest hour on demand when the attached strings were pulled, allowing the owner to hear the time in the dark. The cases with their trelliswork and rosette pattern in brass and blue-stained horn are each other’s opposites: the clock with a horn ground inlaid with brass and the barometer with a brass ground inlaid with horn. This marquetry is often referred to as Boulle work after the French royal cabinetmaker André Charles Boulle (1642-1732) who was a true master of this technique and to whom clock cases of this design have been attributed.
Artwork Details
- Title: Cartel barometer (one of a pair)
- Maker: Case probably by André Charles Boulle (French, Paris 1642–1732 Paris)
- Artist: Jacques III Thuret (1669–1738)
- Date: ca. 1710
- Culture: French
- Medium: Gilded bronze, inlaid with steel and blue horn
- Dimensions: confirmed: 27 × 11 1/2 × 4 1/2 in. (68.6 × 29.2 × 11.4 cm)
- Classification: Horology
- Credit Line: Bequest of Mrs. Charles Wrightsman, 2019
- Object Number: 2019.283.69
- Curatorial Department: European Sculpture and Decorative Arts
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