ANTIDE JANVIER "EMPIRE MANTEL CLOCK" GILT BRONZE
Antide Janvier, No. 321. Made circa 1801.
Very fine and important flame mahogany and gilt bronze Mantel clock,half hour and hour
striking,calendar and Réaumur thermometer
Rectangular, clock at the top, back with sliding panel revealing the movement, extended
forward base with two gilt bronze lions, between them a rectangular cutout showing the
Reaumur thermometer display, gilt bun feet.
Silvered chapter ring with inlaid radial Roman numerals,matte gilt center winch engraved
''Janvier au Louvre No 321," blue steel Breguet hands. White enamel small subsidiary dial at
the top for the day of the week and date,blue steel Breguet hands. Thermometer dial :matt gilt
rectangular plate with 2 applied silvered sectors for two Reaumur scale from -10 to 30, on the
side engraved "Composé par Janvier.'' Blue steel index hand.
Circular 105 mm. brass, four circular pillars, going barrel, anchor escapement, brass bob
pendulum with steel rod, silk suspension. Réaumur thermometer: bimetallic steel and brass
lever acting on a pivoted steel lever to which the hand is fixed. Signed on dial and movement.
Illustrated in: Michel Hayard:'' Antide Janvier 1751-1835'' page 208.
ANTIDE JANVIER (1751-1835) Janvier was
born on 1 July 1751 at Briva, a hamlet in the
commune of Lavans, near Saint Claude. His
father, Claude Etienne Janvier, at first a farm
labourer, had abandoned the plough to take up
clockmaking. When he noticed the exceptional
ability of his son in his own new trade, he did his
utmost to have him carefully taught by a certain
Abbé Tournier, inventor of a method for calculating
gears. Antide Janvier became interested in
mechanical matters and astronomy at an early
age; remarkably precocious, he may be considered
as the most extraordinary, and the most
learned, of French clockmakers. At the age of 15,
he had already made a globe, which represented
mechanically the movements of the heavenly
bodies. He presented it to the Academy des Arts
et Belles-Lettres de Besançon, which, during an
extraordinary session dedicated to him, decreed:
"The Sieur Antide Janvier, of Saint Claude, having
presented to the Academy a globe on which
he has executed in movement a system of
astron my, this Company believes that it cannot
give too much praise and encouragement to a
young man of seventeen, whose industriousness
would honour a confirmed mechanical expert; it
regards it as an act of justice to confer this present
certificate upon him. Given at the Palais de
Granvelle, in Besançon, on 24 May 1768. Signed:
Droz, permanent secretary. Such an exceptional
achievement was soon known throughout the
city, and the inhabitants were so enthusiastic,
that there was no question of Janvier's leaving.
So he established himself in Besançon, where
he restored the table clock of Cardinal Granvelle,
made in Augsburg in 1564. Returning to Saint
Claude in 1771, he visited Morez frequently,
dividing his activities between these two cities,
as an official Memoir for Year IX of the Republic
indicates: "A celebrated artist, the Citizen Janvier
senior, having established himself in Morez,
corrected the methods, made known the right
principles, and taught how to join elegance to
sturdiness in the work (of clockmaking)". A moving
astronomical globe, in gilded wood, now in
the Besançon Museum, bearing the inscription:
"Exécutée à Saint Claude, par Antide Janvier
fils en 1771 A Et. 20 (Made in Saint Claude, by
Antide Janvier son, in 1771 A Et. 20) [the 20th
year of his age], bears witness to his activities in
Saint Claude, as does the planetary clock of the
Gélis collection, now in the Paul Dupuy Museum
in Toulouse, signed: Janvier fils à Saint Claude
fecit l'an 1773. (Janvier jr at Saint Claude made
this in the year 1773). In 1773, a Memoir of the
famous astronomer Lalande, read at the Academy
of Science, announced that on 18 October a
comet would pass near the earth. Janvier seized
this opportunity to obtain from his father's
permission to go to Paris for that day. During this
journey he had the honour of presenting one of
his moving globes to King Louis XV. On 10 May
1775, on his return to Besançon, he presented to
the Academy two new globes "most ingenious
and very well made".