Rare VERSAILLES clock with silk suspension, superb condition c. 1790-1800 LOOK - $2,600 - (Buffalo, NY)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Rare Versailles clock Made for Versailles Palace of Louis IV when the Napoleon Bonaparte become Emperor. It is signed "Girard a Versailles". It is made of white marble with superbly casted and Fire Gilded decorations. These are of the very highest quality with matte and burnished gilding. There is nothing missing and everything is in perfect clean condition with almost no wear. The movement is 8 day duration, silk suspension, very high quality and keeping good time. However, we are selling this clock as "not working" on account of it not chiming for some reason. Clock maker will surely sort this out without the problem. Aside of that, the clock is in superb state of preservation. We are selling this clock in "as found" condition. --------------------------- And now for some background and history. During the French Revolution the government of the time confiscated the furnishings of all palaces of Gilotined aristocracy and sold these, mostly to America and England, the rest of the small stuff was simply stolen by mob. When Napoleon Bonaparte crown himself an Emperor, and take possession of the Versailles Palace (among others), he found that he does not even have a chair there to sit on. All the furnishings has to be ordered and made anew. This clock was one of those items. The actual Versailles was in those times just a small village outside of Paris and if the "Sun King" did no decide to build his Palace there, nobody would ever heard about it. There was no clock maker there so the clocks, with host of other stuff, must have been ordered in Paris. There was a clockmaker of this name in Paris at this time and according the established norm he would have signed his clocks "a Paris". The fact he signed "Girard a Versailles" is the sure proof that it has been made especially for Versailles Palace. This makes this clock a really rare item. This clock is also very heavy, about 7kg (15-16 lbs). ------------------------------------- There is a poss…
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