Cartel barometer (one of a pair)
Jacques III Thuret|André Charles Boulle
ca. 1710 · Gilded bronze, inlaid with steel and blue horn · European Sculpture and Decorative Arts
The original repeating movement of the wall clock, now replaced, was very practical. It would strike the nearest hour on demand when the attached strings were pulled, allowing the owner to hear the time in the dark. The cases with their trelliswork and rosette pattern in brass and blue-stained horn are each other’s opposites: the clock with a horn ground inlaid with brass and the barometer with a brass ground inlaid with horn. This marquetry is often referred to as Boulle work after the French royal cabinetmaker André Charles Boulle (1642-1732) who was a true master of this technique and to whom clock cases of this design have been attributed.
- Artist
- Jacques III Thuret|André Charles Boulle
- Date
- ca. 1710
- Medium
- Gilded bronze, inlaid with steel and blue horn
- Culture
- French
- Department
- European Sculpture and Decorative Arts
- Credit line
- Bequest of Mrs. Charles Wrightsman, 2019
