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A Louis XV Gilt Bronze and Meissen Porcelain Elephant Clock, c. 1745-1750

Exhibited by Pascal Izarn

Material Gilt bronze, porcelain, enamel

Dimensions 51 x 32 x 21 cm (20 x 12 ½ x 8 ¼ in)

Status Vetted

About the Work

The dial signed "Etienne Lenoir à Paris", the counter-enamel signed by the enameller "Jouve", the movement signed "Etienne Lenoir à Paris"

The elephant modelled by Peter Reinicke, 1743

Etienne II Le Noir (1699-1778), maître on 26 November 1717

Pierre-Etienne Le Noir (ca. 1724 – d. after 1789), maître on 22 February 1743

Meissen produced several different models of elephants. This version, with the tassled caparison surmounted by a Turkish sultan was made by Peter Reinecke in November 1743 and listed as “Einen Elephanten 9. Zoll hoch, mit einer verzierten Decke überhangend in Thon bossirt” (An elephant 9 inches high, with an ornate overhanging saddle cloth embossed in clay) (1 Ab 20, Bl. 273, cited in Andres-Acevedo, op. cit., no. 426). The model was clearly intended to be mounted in gilt bronze especially as it lacks a porcelain base.

A similar clock of this model by Gudin on a later Louis XVI base is in the Rijksmuseum (inv. BK-17503; see Baarsen, op. cit., no. 50). Here, the Turkish Sultan sits above the movement which the elephant supports.

Etienne II Le Noir formed a partnership in 1750 with his son, Pierre-Etienne, before retiring in 1771. Their workshop reached its apogee during this period.

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Provenance

An aristocratic Italian collection

Literature

Comparative Literature
R. Baarsen, Paris 1650-1900. Decorative Arts in the Rijksmuseum, New Haven and London, 2013, pp. 210-213, no. 50.
M. Deldicque (ed.), La fabrique de l'extravagance: Porcelaines de Meissen et de Chantilly, exh. cat., Musée Condé, Château de Chantilly, 5 Sep 2020 – 3 Jan 2021, St-Remy-en-l'Eau, 2020, p. 234, no. 92.
S.-K. Andres-Acevedo, Die autonomen figürlichen Plastiken Johann Joachim Kaendlers und seiner Werkstatt zwischen 1731 und 1748, Stuttgart, 2023, p. 155, no. 426.