A fine quality 19th century French marble perpetual calendar mantel clock with moonphase indication, by A Brocot & Delettrez, Paris, circa 1870.
A fine quality 19th century French marble perpetual calendar mantel clock with moonphase indication, by A Brocot & Delettrez, Paris, circa 1870.
The impressive drumhead case flanked by scrolled decoration, supported by reeded columns terminating in half round capitals, beneath the moulded stepped base. Opening cast brass bezels to the front and rear, with a further rear opening door, allowing for easy access to all controls and parts.
The clock 5” enamelled dial with Roman hours encircling a recessed centre with jewelled visible Brocot escapement set over another 5” enamelled dial giving full perpetual calendar information of month, day and date as well as moonphases, all enclosed by the bissextile chapter, both dials are in excellent original condition.
The day of the month automatically corrects for the shorter months and thus takes the correct action on 28, 29 (for leap years), 30, or 31 day months.
The fully restored eight day twin barrel clock movement with circular plates united by four pillars and rack striking the hours and half hour on a single bell, stamped to the front plate A Brocot & Delettrez Paris.
Both movements are of remarkable quality and design, in fully functioning restored order.
Original brass bob pendulum.
Finely fretted blued steel hands.
A very fine clock in excellent original condition with the movements fully restored.
The proportions of the clock are very good and it is an excellent size for displaying on a mantelpiece or side table.
All of our clock movements are restored by our horologist who is a Fellow of the British Horological Institute (FBHI), having 50 years of full time professional engagement in the repair & restoration of clocks, watches, music boxes & barometers. He was the recipient of the Worshipful Company of Clockmakers Bronze Medal.
All of our clocks have been sympathetically restored and have been expertly vetted for originality and good working order.
All clocks purchased from us are guaranteed for two years.
Please contact us for further details and delivery information.
For overseas customers a fully insured shipment can be organised direct to your door for most locations in the world, please contact us for a shipping price.
(Antoine) Jean-Baptiste Delettrez (1 May 1816 – 25 May 1887) was a 19th-century French clockmaker.
Delettrez and Achille Brocot, son of the respected clockmaker Louis-Gabriel Brocot, established the clockmaking company “Brocot et Delettrez” in Paris on 20 October 1851, with premises at 62 Rue Charlot. Delettrez worked alongside Achille Brocot for several years and their clock movements are considered to be the most effective made during the late 19th century. Their speciality was a range of clocks based on the innovations of Brocot père and his other son Antoine, but generally of Achille’s greatly advanced original design, some having a unique single-arm double-wheel escapement, some having a temperature-compensated pendulum, some having two dials, one of which showed the time and the other which showed a calendar and often other information such as phases of the moon, times of sunrise & sunset in Paris. The firm was awarded a 1st class prize at the Paris World Exposition of 1857 for a commercial clock of this type.
This innovative and fruitful partnership continued until the death of Brocot fils in 1878, after which event Delettrez continued on his own. His typical later product was a conventional 8-day mantle clock that struck the hours and half-hours, still based on the standard Brocot escapement and suspension that he had helped to refine. These elegant and much-admired timepieces were typically made to order for retailers, including several in Britain, with dials carrying the name of the retailer rather than that of their maker, but whose mechanism was stamped with the cartouche (JBD).
He married his cousin Caroline Delettrez in Paris on 2 April 1845. They had two sons, Louis and Jules, both of whom later carried on the family tradition of metalworking, the former as a manufacturer of bronze objets d’art and the latter as a goldsmith.
Louis Achille Brocot, 11 July 1817 – 19 January 1878, was a French clockmaker and amateur mathematician.
He is known for his discovery (contemporaneously with, but independently of, German number theorist Moritz Stern) of the Stern–Brocot tree, a mathematical structure useful in approximating real numbers by rational numbers; this sort of approximation is an important part of the design of gear ratios for clocks.
Several improvements in clock design were attributed to Brocot. He invented the “Brocot Suspension”, which enabled time keeping to be regulated by altering the length of the pendulum suspension spring by a key turned in the dial.
He also made many practical horological innovations including refinement of his father Louis-Gabriel’s Brocot escapement and the development of clocks with perpetual calendar mechanisms. In order to commercially exploit his original designs, together with Jean-Baptiste Delettrez he established the clockmaking company “Brocot & Delettrez” in Paris on 20 October 1851, a partnership that would continue until his death.
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