Lieutaud, Duplessis and Fonck - A late Louis XV Boulle inlaid bracket clock

A late Louis XV Boulle inlaid petite sonnerie strinking bracket clock, by Fonck à Berne, Lieutaud and Duplessis
The case stamped B.LIEUTAUD, Balthasar Lieutaud (1720-1780), Parisian cabinetmaker master in 1749.
The bronzes attributed to Jean-Claude Duplessis (1699-1774), sculptor and bronzemaker appointed goldsmith to the king in 1758.
The movement signed "Fonck a Berne" for Daniel Beat Ludwig Funk (1727-1787), clockmaker active in Bern in the mid-18th century.
Paris and Berne circa 1760.

This elegant late Louis XV period Boulle marquetry cartel is stamped three times by B.LIEUTAUD. The sinuous case, the console and the top part are stamped and covered with tortoiseshell and engraved brass marquetry, depicting scrolls of flowers and quatrefoils, inspired by Indiennes, the precious imported textiles that became fashionable across Europe in the mid-18th century. The decoration is enhanced by rich ormolu mounts, in full and loose rocaille forms, composed of acanthus scrolls, crosses, asymmetrical cartouches and a neoclassical vase adorned with laurel festoons. The three train movement with verge escapement and silk suspension, petite sonnerie striking on three bells (the hours on a bell and the quarters two smaller bells). The backplate signed Fonck à Berne.


Balthazar Lieutaud was a master cabinetmaker from a long family tradition and was active from the reign of Louis XV to the beginning of the reign of Louis XVI. Receiving his master's diploma in 1749, he set up his workshop in 1750 on rue de la Pelleterie, on the Ile de la Cité, in the watchmakers' district, and specialized in the production of high-quality and luxuriously decorated cases for barometers, cartels and regulators, for which he entrusts the making of the gilded bronze decorations to the most skilled finest Parisian bronze smelters and chiselers of the time, as well as the exclusive use of certain models. During the reign of Louis XV, Jean-Claude Duplessis (1699-1774) designed the bronzes that give Lieutaud's cartels and regulators their distinctive silhouette. Lieutaud also collaborated on his neoclassical models with Caffieri Jeune (1714-1774), author of the bronzes for the regulator with Appolon's chariot in the Frick Collection, and Charles Grimpelle, who created the bronzes for his pendule à l'étude, a copy of which is in the Metmuseum. In 1772, he moved to rue d'Enfer, still on the Ile de la Cité, where he died in 1780. His widow continued the business until the workshop closed in 1784. Balthasar Lieutaud deposited four cartel drawings featuring bronze decor similar to our own, in the "Livre de dessins de pendules" des fondeurs, ciseleurs de Paris. This manuscript, now in the Doucet collection at the INHA Library in Paris, contains a preparatory drawing quite identical to our cartel, under folio 1, described as follows: "N°1 Cabinet en fonte et ébénisterie, Lieutaud, 121 livres".

The bronze mounts of this braket clock are typical of the bronzes used by Balthasar Lieutaud in the early 1760s, and are repeated identically on a whole corpus of cartels signed by this cabinetmaker. Their decorative repertoire is characteristic of the classicizing rocaille style that took hold in Parisian decorative arts in the 1750s, under the impetus of architect Pierre Contant d'Ivry (1698-1777), as illustrated by his 1753 designs for the Duc d'Orléans at the Palais Royal, published in Diderot and d'Alembert's Encyclopédie in 1762 (Le salon du Palais Royal, based on drawings by Contant d'Ivry, plate XXIX and Table console du Salon du Palais Royal, based on drawings by Contant d'Ivry, plate XXXVI). These full, loose and symmetrical forms are especially characteristic of the aesthetics developed by Jean Claude Duplessis (1699-1774), who created some remarquable gilt-bronzes, and was responsible for the bronze mounts on some of Lieutaud's regulators and cartels. Jean-Claude Duplessis, an artist of Piedmontese origin born Giovani Claudio Chambellano, known as Duplessis, in Turin in 1699, first worked as a silversmith for the Duke of Savoy Vittorio Amadeo II (1666-1732), then arrived in Paris in 1718, following in the footsteps of his son-in-law, the Prince of Carignan Vittorio Amadeo I (1690-1741). On the prince's death in 1730, thanks to the protection of the comte d'Argenson (1696-1764), he obtained a workshop in the Louvre and produced some remarkable furnishing bronzes, such as the brazier in the Topkapi Museum, presented in 1741 by Louis XV to the Ottoman ambassador Mehmet Saïd Pacha, around 1750, the bronzes for the Concert des Singes organ clock in the Musée du Petit Palais in Paris, and from 1760 he received the commission of the bronze mounts for Louis XV desk by Œben and Riesener ( Château de Versailles). From 1748 until his death, he was also attached to the porcelain manufactory of Vincennes, then Sèvres, where he designed most of the shapes as a modeler. His name appears several times in the diary of merchant Lazare Duvaux (1703-1758), notably for celadon vase mounts he made for the Marquis d'Argenson. A leading artist - he was appointed goldsmith to the king in 1758 - Duplessis, born in Turin, was to make a profound impression on the French decorative arts. From the disheveled rocaille of the 1740s, he evolved towards fuller, more symmetrical forms, linking with neoclassicism, and giving Lieutaud's cartels and regulators their inimitable silhouette.

Daniel Beat Ludwig Funk (1726-1787) was the son and partner, from 1753, of Matthaus Funk, the Swiss cabinetmaker and joiner who founded the Fonck workshop in Bern, which marketed furniture, mirrors and clocks throughout the 18th century. The son of a cabinetmaker, Daniel Fonck specialized in the production of clock movements. In the 18th century, the Bernese Jura region had a strong watchmaking tradition, which enabled Daniel Funk to quickly set up a specialized workshop. Fonck in Bern produced the movements for his clocks and cartels, and the workshop also made most of the cases, while higher-quality cases were sometimes imported from Paris, like our very luxurious cartel clock case supplied by Balthazar Lieutaud.