Clock, chased and gilded brass case. Signed on an enamel plaque set below the dial 'Le Bon à Paris'.

A mantel clock in a chased ormolu case described as 'pendule d'officier', signed 'Le Bon a Paris' , 1730-1760

Case and dial: Chased and shaped ormolu case. White enamel dial 4 inches diameter with hours in Roman numerals, minutes numbered at 5 minute intervals in arabic. The winding holes pierced at IIII and VIII.

Signed on a white enamel cartouche LEBON A PARIS

Movement: plates 5 1/2 inches by 3 3/4 inches (14 x 9.5 cms) with upper corners cut away and lower corners rounded. Signed on the backplate Le Bon Paris
Going train to the right, with going barrel and verge escapement, crown wheel of 35 T. Crutch broken off. Provision for thread suspension of pendulum, but without regulation (Contrate wheel and arbor now displaced)
Locking-plate striking train to left, with going barrel and eternal count-wheel on arbor of second wheel, allowing also a single stroke at the half-hours.
A metal fret in the rear door of the case, lined with red silk, allows the sound to escape.

Bequeathed by John Jones

This clock was among a large collection of furniture, porcelain, metalwork, paintings and books owned by the tailor and businessman John Jones, and kept in cramped conditions at his house at 95, Piccadilly. In his will of 4 December 1879 and in a codicil of 22 January 1880, Jones bequeathed the objects to the South Kensington Museum, and they were transferred there after his death in 1882. The Handbook to the Jones bequest, published in 1883, marvels at the value of the gift, which seems still not to have been displayed to best advantage: 'Probably a large majority of those who visit the Jones collection will be indisposed to believe ... that so limited a space as three not large galleries in the Museum can contain furniture and decorative arts worth no less than a quarter of a million of money'. Jones' principal collecting interests lay in French eighteenth-century furniture and decorative arts, of which this clock is an example, as well as reflecting the late-Victorian love of rich, gilded surfaces and historical artistic styles. Acquired by John Jones before 1882; it is one of sixteen clocks he bequeathed to this museum.

Charles Le Bon (1707 - after 1739) was appointed Marchand-Horloger Privilegie du Roi 9 May 1707 in succession to Pierre du Corroy. He remained in post until 1739 when he was succeeded by Paul Gudin. Le Bon presented various inventions to the Academie des Sciences and provided an equation clock for the comte de Toulouse, the legitimized son of Louis XIV, which had a case made by A.C.Boulle after the designs of Antoine-Claude Vassé. The Marquis de Marigny, brother of Madame de Pompadour, also owned clocks by Le Bon.

A gilt brass table clock by Le Bon, Paris, circa 1730. Charles Le Bon (1707 - after 1739) was appointed Marchand-Horloger Privilegie du Roi 9 May 1707. He remained in post until 1739.

998-1882