Drocourt Paris: A Finely Engraved Oval Carriage Clock

Drocourt Paris: A Finely Engraved Oval Carriage Clock.

The eight-day duration movement has a silvered platform lever escapement and strikes the hours and half-hours on a gong, with push button repeat of the last hour at will and has a subsidiary alarm and. The movement backplate is stamped with the clock serial number 11715 along with the wording Fast/Slow either side of the regulator index for adjusting the rate of timekeeping, and the Drocourt trademark, an oval with the initials D.C. either side of a clock.

The inside of the movement plates are stamped with the Drocourt trademark oval, the wording Drocourt, Paris, Fnt, (Fabricant or Maker), with the frontplate stamped with the initials H.L. for the maker of the blanc roulant, Holingue frères, but interestingly without their usual movement serial number.

The white enamel dial has black Roman hour numerals, Arabic outer five-minute numerals, dots to the outer aspect and blued steel moon hands and has a finely engraved gilded masked surround.

Complete with the original numbered travelling box.

Provenance: The Derek Roberts Collection

Leigh Extence additional notes: In the context of the Drocourt history, this is a fairly important clock as it is stamped to the frontplate H.L. for Holingue frères, but doesn’t have a Holingue blanc roulant serial number, and is the last recorded Drocourt with the H.L. initials. It has all the signs of being manufactured after the takeover of their workshops by Alfred Drocourt in 1874/75, for instance by incorporating straight crossing out to the wheelwork as opposed to the curved employed earlier. It must be assumed that some earlier movement plates, still with the H.L. initials stamped on, were being used by Drocourt. This gives further credence to my theory that H.L. was indeed Holingue frères as the ability to fit later wheelwork to earlier plates suggests all being made in the same workshop, especially as my research has proven that Drocourt did indeed take on the Holingue premises at this time.

For further details of Drocourt and Holingue frères see my 2014 Exhibition catalogue: Pierre & Alfred Drocourt: An Exhibition of Carriage Clocks, available via the Catalogues and Publications page on my website.

Dimensions

This object is eligible for a Certificate of BADA Provenance

Condition report

Stock number