Delépine-Barrois: A Pillared Carriage Clock in the English Style

Delépine-Barrois: A Pillared Carriage Clock in the English Style.

A pillared carriage clock, very much in the English style by Delépine-Barrois, previously Delépine-Canchy succesors to Honoré Pons, who at this time were also supplying movements, and complete clocks, for Jacot to finish.

The eight-day duration movement is fitted with a platform lever escapement which is stamped with the initials 'G.V.' as seen on the platforms of other Delépine carriage clocks and numbered to the underside 95286. The movement strikes the hours and half-hours on a gong and has a push button to the top to repeat the strike of the last hour at will. The backplate is stamped with the serial number 2015 and has a hand setting arrow of a design used by Delépine.

The gilded dial has black Roman hour numerals, blued steel spade hands and has an integral gilded surround.

The gilded pillared case has a silvered handle insert and silvered pillars.

The case style is a smaller, but almost identical, version of that used by Alfred Drocourt for a giant grande-sonnerie, stock number 1332.

I have done some extensive research into the Delepine-Barrois partnership with some quite surprising results.

The Delépine of Delépine-Barrois is not the well-known Saint Nicolas d'Aliermont maker Charles-Boromé Delépine taking on a new partner after the death of his partner Charles Canchy as previously assumed. It is in fact a relative of his named Ludovic Delépine along with Ludovic's wife Marie Barrois. Marie was a Parisian girl who had no prior horological experience as such. Her father had died in Paris and her widowed mother then married her sister's brother-in-law, the horloger Gustave Sauteur. They moved to Saint Nicolas d'Aliermont in circa 1880 where Marie met and married Ludovic Delépine in 1884. Together they formed the Delépine-Barrois business that became one of the finest carriage clock producers of the late-Victorian period and eventually succeeded Charles-Borome Delépine following his death in 1891 and therefore by descent were successors to Honoré Pons. They originally lived in a house next to the church with workshops set up in the gardens but moved across the town square to the prominent house with workshops that is well-known having been depicted on many postcards of the time. It is quite probable that these premises were originally built by the step-uncle to Marie Barrois, the prominent horologist Augustin Sauteur, brother to Gustave.
Ludovic and Marie Delépine returned to Paris in 1912, having had an horological business running in tandem with that in Saint Nicolas from at least 1901, and their business, along with the house and workshops, were taken over by the Couaillet family.

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This object is eligible for a Certificate of BADA Provenance

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