Lefevre à Paris

Lefevre à Paris, circa 1790. Very fine and rare eight-day going, hour and half-hour striking, weight driven, centre-seconds skeleton mantel regulator. assive brass frame, designed as an upside clown "Y", with cylindrical pillars, set on a marbie base "rouge grillottes". White enamel with Roman numerals and inner seconds ring. Very fine gilt brass Louis XVI hands, the counterpoised end of the minute hand, pierced and engraved with an "L". Going-train with two weights and a single barrel, pin-wheel anchor escapement set on the back of the frame, half-seconds beating grid-iron pendulum with spring blade suspension. Striking train with going-barrel, the count-wheel on the front face, striking on a bell. Signed on the dial. In very good condition. Dim. 48x20x14cm. Notes Several regulators of this type are known and described in books devoted to regulators or skeleton clocks. They are signed by the best makers such as Lepine and Breguet. Some of them are just precision time-keepers, others are set with a striking train or an equation of time. Their weight driven movements are all very similar, the lay out of the going train being almost identical and all seem to have been constructed in the same workshop. Robert Robin 'vas the first French maker to fit his clocks with hands pierced and engraved with his own initial; he was followed by a few other makers, usually amongst the best. Similar pieces illustrated in "skeleton clocks", by Royer Collaud, NAG Press 1969, p. 79