Lot n° 107
Estimation :
2000 - 3000
EUR
Result with fees
Result
: 9 016EUR
Rare and ingenious torch forming an alarm... - Lot 107 - Coutau-Bégarie
Rare and ingenious torch forming an alarm clock in chased and gilded bronze, the base with chased contours of shells, frieze of posts and openwork rocaille on an amati background, the shaft graduated from 1 to 8 on both sides of a push button allowing the adjustment of the height of the candle by a sliding spring system.
Under the torch, a removable and perforated bottom contains a bell with system.
Louis XV period, around 1750.
Work of the Navarre house in Paris, signed on the back.
H.: 25cm
This model of torch is unique to our knowledge. Its ingenious system allows the candle to burn and ensures the function of night light, having previously determined by the slide the desired time at the end of which the alarm clock rang. A knob at the base of the candlestick allows the sliding of another wire to wind up the mechanism. When the candle is entirely consumed, the taut wire activates the mechanism and the alarm clock is set off.
The reference work of Henry René d'Allemagne, "L'Histoire du luminaire depuis l'Antiquité jusqu'au XIXe siècle", mentions among the candlesticks with system only those equipped with an automatic extinguisher, which one found at the store of the Small Dunkerque, at the sieur Granchez.
Francois Navarre, ordinary engineer in instruments of physics and mathematics privileged of Monseigneur the Duke of Burgundy is more known for his work on the astronomical glasses. The richness of our candlestick and its decoration inevitably indicates an important sponsor, and very probably a marketing by a renowned merchant merchant of the Faubourg Saint Honore, like Lazare Duvaux or Hébert.
The conception and realization of our model precedes by more than a century the current use of individual alarm clocks.
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