You may recall that one of the first pendulum clocks, made for Christian Huygens by Salomon Coster, of the Hague, was presented to the King of France.  The first French pendulum clocks, like Fromanteel's first English clocks, were a direct take on the Coster model:

(image credit: Pacific Antique Clocks, Vancouver)

You will see all the hallmarks of the Netherlands influence, the small, rectangular movement with going barrel, and cycloidal cheeks, the box shaped case with the hinged dial, velvet ground, even the little signature flap covering an aperture to start the pendulum.  Note, however, the exuberant crest, and the gilt mounts on the door frame.  The French, in this example by Theodore Demire, Paris, are starting in the direction of an exuberant style.

In the example above the fold, by Gribellin à Paris, the case, although still rectangular in form, has been veneered with fashionable tortoise shell, inlaid with multi-colored metals.  The clock now has a decorative superstructure topped with gilt finials.  The dial, although still on a velvet ground, has a large decorative gilt cast bronze decoration instead of the simple name flap. I love that section of inlay below the dial, that seems like it's oozing over the edge.  

(image credit: Hora, Associaxione Italiana Cultori di Orologeria Antica)

This example, by Gaudron à Paris is really exuberant. It has corner corinthian columns on angled plinths, multiple finials and the decorative dial piece looks like it's holding up the chapter on S-shaped pieces, festooned with swags.  Although still with the velvet ground, it's diminishing in importance, to make more room for boulle-work inlay.  This one has an unusual 24 hour dial, where the night-time hours aren't engraved.  Who's up then anyway?

The classic boulle-work case, where the tortoise shell is inlaid with metal, was produced by placing two layers of material together, and sawing out the design with a thin jeweler's saw.  Theoretically, there was a negative produced with every positive, and once in a while you see one that was finished in reverse:

(image credit: Musée Magnin, Dijon France)

This interesting timepiece is signed by Claude Hartus, Paris.

The apotheosis of the Louis XIV mantle clock is this huge example, now in the Frick collection in New York.  This clock includes a mercurial barometer (dial at the bottom), so you know it's at least three feet tall.  The top of the mercury tube is hidden behind the finial.

(image credit: French Clocks in North American Collections   Winthrop Edey   The Frick Collection 1982)

This clock was made by Isaac Thuret, who we mentioned in the Huygens-in-Paris article.  It was almost certainly for a Royal commision.  The case was made by André Charles Boulle himself, known thanks to research by Mr. Edey, who took the subject of French clock study out of the "attributed to" limbo.

You notice that all of the clocks we've looked at here were bracket clocks, as opposed to the long pendulum floor clocks that were the rule across the English Channel.  The French did make longcase clocks, but always in far fewer numbers.  At this early period they took the form of a bracket clock sitting on a matching column:

(image credit: French Clocks in North American Collections   Winthrop Edey   The Frick Collection 1982)

Click here for zoomable color images of the last two clocks on the Frick website:

Giant Thuret Bracket

Gaudron Longcase

We'll finish up with a picture of Winthrop (Kelly) Edey in his bizarre West 70's townhouse, which remained, almost untouched, in the condition in which it was built, until his death at the end of the last century. Behind him is that clock, the high point of his bequest to the Frick.

(image credit: Newtown Bee)

Next time: Clockmaking in France goes Rococco: The Regence ushers in the Louis Quinze period.

Previously:

Monastic alarms and the beginnings of clockmaking
De Dondi's remarkable astrarium
Early tower clocks
Gothic iron clocks
Rennaisance clocks
Early english lantern clocks
Huygens and the pendulum
Fromanteel's English pendulum clocks
Huygens in Paris
Clement and the recoil escapement
Edward East and the golden age
Thomas Tompion
Daniel Quare
Joseph Knibb
Golden age recap
The balance spring