Important French Exhibition Perpetual Calendar Skeleton Clock

Important Robert 1839 Paris Exhibition Perpetual Calendar Skeleton Clock

Robert, 19 Boulevard Saint-Denis, Paris -1839

France, Louis-Philippe Period
Dated 1839
Signed: Robert, Horloger, Boulevard St. Denis 19, Exposition 1839
Height: approximately 20½ inches
Materials: Gilt and polished brass, silvered brass, blued steel, glass, wood, Belgian slate
Movement: Two-week duration; half-seconds pendulum; jeweled deadbeat escapement; hour strike
Calendar: Mechanical perpetual calendar displaying day, date and month, constructed to accommodate the differing lengths of months and the four-year leap-year cycle

An exceptionally rare and mechanically sophisticated French perpetual calendar skeleton clock, made in Paris in 1839 and inscribed in association with the Exposition des Produits de l’Industrie Française of 1839.

The clock combines two distinct but visually integrated mechanical systems: an architectural skeletonized timekeeping movement displayed beneath glass above, and an elaborate perpetual calendar mechanism housed within the black slate pedestal below.

The upper movement is arranged in the manner of a miniature architectural or turret clock. Substantial gilt-brass pillars support the exposed train, allowing the construction and operation of the mechanism to remain deliberately visible. At its center is an open-work silvered chapter ring with Roman numerals and finely formed blued steel Breguet-type hands.

The movement is of two-week duration and incorporates a half-seconds beating pendulum, jeweled deadbeat escapement and countwheel-controlled hour striking mechanism—features indicative of a clock conceived as an exhibition of horological skill rather than simply a domestic timepiece. Skinner likewise catalogued these features when the clock appeared there in 2011.

The brass platform is engraved:

ROBERT
Horloger
Boulevard St. Denis 19
Exposition 1839

The inscription is particularly significant, connecting the clock directly with the celebrated French industrial exhibition held in Paris in 1839.

The Perpetual Calendar

The lower portion of the clock contains its most intellectually ambitious feature: a fully mechanical perpetual calendar.

Set within the restrained black slate pedestal is a large silvered circular calendar dial surrounding an exposed mechanism of wheels, springs and steel levers. Concentric indications provide the date of the month, month of the year and day of the week, while the underlying mechanism was designed to account automatically for the changing lengths of the calendar months and the four-year leap-year cycle. Skinner specifically described the calendar as self-correcting through that cycle.

Unlike an ordinary calendar clock requiring manual correction at the conclusion of a short month, the perpetual system embodies the irregular Gregorian calendar mechanically.

The clock consequently represents not merely decorative horology, but an early nineteenth-century demonstration of mechanical computation: the calendar itself translated into wheels, cams, levers and predetermined mechanical relationships.

The 1839 Paris Exhibition

The engraved reference to “Exposition 1839” is central to the clock's historical importance.

The Exposition des Produits de l’Industrie Française was one of nineteenth-century France's major showcases for technical innovation, manufacturing and the decorative arts. Horologists used such exhibitions to demonstrate advances in precision timekeeping, complications and mechanical ingenuity.

Research accompanying the clock when offered at Skinner concluded that it was likely associated with the 1839 Paris Exposition. Skinner further recorded that its mainsprings were signed and dated 1839, providing important physical corroboration of the clock's period manufacture.

Its exposed movement and conspicuous perpetual-calendar mechanism are entirely consistent with an object intended to demonstrate its maker's technical abilities before an informed exhibition audience.

The Maker: Robert of 19 Boulevard Saint-Denis

The identity of the maker deserves particular scholarly attention.

When sold at Skinner, the clock was catalogued as the work of celebrated French horologist Henri Robert (1794–1874). Henri Robert was among the significant French clockmakers of the nineteenth century and was associated with the technical tradition of Abraham-Louis Breguet.

There is, however, an important distinction.

Christie's has noted that Robert of Boulevard Saint-Denis was recorded separately by Tardy from Henri Robert and his son, and that Henri Robert's documented addresses do not correspond with the 19 Boulevard Saint-Denis address engraved upon this clock. Christie's therefore treated the attribution to Henri Robert with caution.

More recent archival scholarship associates the workshop at 19 Boulevard Saint-Denis with the Paris horologist Jean-Louis Robert, who took over an horological and jewelry establishment at that address in 1838 and participated in the 1839 exhibition.

For this reason, Antique Alliance considers the most responsible present cataloguing to be:

Robert, 19 Boulevard Saint-Denis, Paris, 1839
Historically attributed to Henri Robert; more recent scholarship supports an association with Jean-Louis Robert.

This formulation preserves the clock's established literature and auction history while acknowledging subsequent research concerning the maker.

Provenance

Cottone Auctions, New York
28 April 2006, Lot 78
Sold for $36,300

Literature

F. B. Royer-Collard
Skeleton Clocks
London, 1969
p. 72, illustrated and discussed

The identification of the present clock in Royer-Collard is particularly important. It establishes the clock not merely through auction records but within the recognized scholarly literature devoted to skeleton clocks.

Skinner expressly recorded the clock as the example illustrated and discussed on page 72.

Significance

This clock occupies an unusual position at the intersection of horology, scientific instrument making and nineteenth-century exhibition culture.

Its importance rests not upon any one characteristic, but upon an unusual convergence of qualities:

• a highly sophisticated mechanical perpetual calendar

• an exposed architectural skeleton movement

• jeweled deadbeat escapement and half-seconds pendulum

• a firm 1839 date

• an inscription referencing the 1839 French Industrial Exhibition

• publication in an important horological reference

• documented appearances at both Cottone and Skinner

• and an unusually interesting developing body of scholarship concerning the identity of Robert of Boulevard Saint-Denis.

The clock was designed not simply to tell time, but to display mechanical intelligence. Its transparent architecture makes the mechanism itself the ornament, while the perpetual calendar transforms an irregular astronomical and civil system into a mechanically predetermined sequence.

Nearly two centuries later, the clock remains remarkably modern in concept: a machine intended to make complicated information understandable through motion.

Antique Alliance Note

Few clocks so successfully unite mechanical complexity, visual transparency and documented history.

Created at a moment when French horologists were presenting their finest achievements before international and technically sophisticated audiences, this remarkable clock reduces one of civilization's most complicated recurring systems—the calendar—to a sequence of beautifully visible mechanical actions.

Its exhibition inscription, published status and established auction provenance elevate it beyond the category of an accomplished antique clock.

It is an important surviving document of French nineteenth-century horological innovation.