Important pendulum with the profile of Lafayette from the Louis XVI period

Important pendulum in carved, gilded and cream-refined wood, decorated with warrior attributes and a woman holding a shield and a pike on which rests a headgear.

The movement rests on a base decorated laterally with friezes of piastres and an escutcheon with the coat of arms of 3 heads of capitals. It is topped by an obelisk on which the profile of Lafayette appears in a medallion, surrounded by the legend Libertatis Restaurator. This same obelisk is topped with the cushioning of a lion standing on its hind legs and in its front legs lightning.

"It was for American freedom, very real, that, a young man, a little clumsy, inexperienced, very rich and very much in love with his wife, he left everything and fought until the victory of Yorktown in 1781. In 1789, then aged thirty-four, it was still freedom, now French, that he tried to serve, at least until 1791. And to which he devoted the rest of his life, having never been an agitator like d'Eprémesnil, neither a theoretician like Sieyès, nor an orator like Mirabeau, nor a tribune like Danton, nor an ideologue like Robespierre, nor a coup general driven by genius like Bonaparte, without having rallied to the Empire or the Restoration like so many survivors of the great period. Seventy-year-old, it was still freedom that he served in 1830, becoming a republican, when he helped the advent of a citizen monarchy from which he soon not to move away. Irreducible like the Gaul he dreamed of being, he has a life in which freedom is the red thread. A freedom first soaked in the blood of the American combatants, soaked a second time in the blood of the July 14 rioters, then overtaken by the revolutionary movement, but intact. A freedom born until its last day..." (in "Lafayette", by Jean-Pierre BOIS, 2015)

The medallion with Lafayette's profile is based on the one made in terracotta by Jean-Martin RENAUD in 1790 and present in the collections of the Carnavalet museum in Paris.

The original movement in working condition has 3 winding squares allowing the striking of the quarter hours on one gong and the striking of the hours on another gong.

Viennese work from the end of the 18th century.

Repairs and small gaps visible in the gilding.

Height: 89 cm.
Width: 54.5 cm.
Depth: 19 cm.

Worldwide delivery on quote.

Ref: O472IC9IZX