Description
Exposition Grande Med D’Honneur 1855
From our Clock collection, we are delighted to offer this French Centre Sweep Carriage Clock by Japy Freres. The Carriage Clock with a ‘one piece case’ form having bevelled edged glazed panels and a gilt brass frame engraved throughout with floral connotations and a superb engraved rear door. The Clock fitted with a large rectangular white enamel dial framed with a circular train track clock face signed Brevet d’Invention S.G.D.G. Below the main dial is a single numbered alarm dial with 12 hours listed individually. The eight day movement strikes on both the half hours and hours with both a bell push repeater located at the top of the carriage clock and self repeats on both the half hour and hour. The duplex platform escapement is encased with a bevelled glass panel revealing its complex and beautiful movement with a steel balance wheel having large blued bat wing timing weights. The top of the platform is beautifully engraved typical of that by Japy Freres. The backplate is stamped with the Japy Freres trademark, an oval cartouche reading Japy Freres & Cie, Grande Med. D’Honneur, Exposition 1855. (see D470, Bovet frères carriage clock for the previous style of trademark). The Carriage Clock dates to the second half of the 19th century during the Napoleon III period circa 1860.
A complete professional strip down service has been completed with this timepiece.
Duplex Platform Escapement ‘Bat Wing’ carriage clocks with this type of escapement were favoured in the Chinese market and often exported to China. The reason was due to the escapements being formed with weights that appeared to look like bat wings. In Chinese culture it is believed that bat wings ward off evil spirits and therefore the clocks became popular in the Chinese market.
Japy Freres The Japy family are a world renowned French industrial dynasty from Beaucourt in the Territoire de Belfort. It owned the second French company, in terms of capital, during the Second Empire. Its influential members have marked the French industrial landscape by the contribution of many innovations, especially in the field of watchmaking, typewriters and pumps, but also in the organisation of work and workers’ social life in the 19th century. The company was founded by Frédéric Japy in 1777 and was later sold in 1806 to his three eldest sons named Fritz-Guillaume, Louis and later Pierre, thus founding the Japy brothers company. The 1880s marked the golden age of Japy with nearly 5,000 workers working in the Japy factories in the region the name was changed in the first half of the 19th century to Japy Freres with various partners involved.
Centre Sweep refers to a hand that counts the seconds. Typically a clock is fitted with both a minute and hour hand however a further hand to count seconds is more uncommon and not often seen especially in carriage clocks making this a highly collectable piece.
Brevet d’Invention S.G.D.G. (Patent of Invention S.G.D.G.) Patented without government guarantee or, by abbreviation, S.G.D.G., formula warning the public that the State, in granting a patent for an invention, does not guarantee either the priority or the value of the invention. The mark was a French type of patent that ceased to exist in 1968. The name was a common abbreviation for “Breveté Sans Garantie Du Gouvernement“.
Measurements 15cm High x 10cm Wide x 9cm Deep (5.9 x 3.94 x 3.54 Inches)
Condition Very Good, one hairline across the alarm dial
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