Bearnes Hampton & Littlewood
Los 742
L’Echopié Jne à Paris, a bronze, ormolu and marble mantel clock the eight-day duration movement striking the hours on a bell with an outside countwheel, the white enamel dial signed L’Echopié Jne à Paris, with black Roman numerals and decorative brass hands, the three tier bronze case with raised relief to the front depicting children playing instruments within a field, with goats to the case sides and floral swags set below, standing on ormolu cloven supports, surmounted by a suckling baby with mother, possibly Apollo with the Goddess Leto, seated on a classical day bed with ormolu griffin supports to the four corners, standing on a further green marble base with ormolu mounts to the edges and turned feet, height 45cm.* Adam L’Echopié was a good maker of clocks working in Paris in the late 18th century and was particularly known for his bronze and marble pieces, which his younger son, the maker of this clock, obviously continued. Adam actually had two sons, both of whom worked at Rue Neuve des Petits Champs from circa 1812, the same address from where the father is recorded working from 1772, they presumably continued his business and would’ve used the same casemaker. There is known a white marble and bronze clock entitled Femme Couronnée par un Amour, signed L’Echopié à Paris, that sold in 1913 for 8,800 francs, presumably by the father, Adam. * A near-identical clock, although signed Bassot à Paris, is illustrated and described in the Encyclopedie de La Pendule Francaise, by Pierre Kjellberg.
