Beschreibung:

A MONUMENTAL EMPIRE ORMOLU AND PATINATED BRONZE MUSICAL ‘SINGING BIRD’ AND AUTOMATON CLOCK
THE DIAL SIGNED BY LOUIS-JACQUES VAILLANT THE CASE ATTRIBUTED TO CLAUDE GALLE CIRCA 1805
A MONUMENTAL EMPIRE ORMOLU AND PATINATED BRONZE MUSICAL ‘SINGING BIRD’ AND AUTOMATON CLOCK THE DIAL SIGNED BY LOUIS-JACQUES VAILLANT THE CASE ATTRIBUTED TO CLAUDE GALLE CIRCA 1805 CASE: the body of slender ovoid outline with raised neck and waisted socle above a square section plinth, the scroll handles modelled with snakes and eagles. Applied overall with relief cast foliate ornament and reserves DIAL: the white enamel dial with Roman hours and Arabic quarter minute markers, blued-steel moon hands and signed ‘VAILLANT INVENIT’ MOVEMENT: with two-train eight-day (?) movement with cylinder escapement regulated by a hairspring, countwheel striking to bell on the hour and half hour, the clock movement in turn trips the pipe organ/bird automaton to operate every three hours MUSIC: the pipe organ plays three tunes by rotation on a single drum, the zinc/lead pipes fed by double pump bellows, the movement for the music with substantial plates holding unusual double mainspring barrels with chains hooked onto a single fusee AUTOMATON: the raised neck of the vase with covered aperture containing the ‘singing bird’ (now replaced), the main body with shutters opening to reveal Neptune with trident above a large conch shell overseeing Charon ferrying a mortal across the River Styx to Hades, with rotating glass waterfalls; the lower plinth with arched doors to Vulcan’s forge with figures striking an anvil with steel hammers, trip lever to base, a steel rod to the mechanism operating the bird stamped '..RNOVER(?)' (possibly incomplete, illustrated here) 32 ¼ in. (82 cm.) high; the plinth base 8 ¾ in. (22.2 cm.) square