Lot 192

Victor Fleury, Horloger de la Marine

A technically highly interesting experimental table clock with seconds jump, remontoir and a free escapement according to Victor Fleury

Victor Fleury was undoubtedly one of the most important Parisian watch and clock makers of the second half of the 19th century. He was based at Rue de la Paix 23 in Paris and advertised with the title "Horloger de la Marine". He is best known for his research and the resulting development of a new free escapement that was to guarantee a rate accuracy for table clocks with half-seconds pendulums that corresponded to the results of a seconds beating 1 metre pendulum clock. In an article for the Horological Journal "The Pendulum applied to Clockwork" from 1866, he describes the connections between pendulum length, the influence of gravity and "free" pendulums ("I also call a free pendulum, one applied to clockwork, and which after having received the impulse achieves freely and without mechanical contact the reminder of its oscillation"). One result of this research is the clock we offer, whose complex escapement system corresponds to these descriptions. In 1867, the French Revue Chronometrique reported on the World Exhibition in Paris. An extensive article explicitly reports on Victor Fleury and his exhibited clocks, with a focus on the description of his then novel "Echappement Fleury". The article is supplemented by numerous construction drawings and the note that if these explanations were not sufficient for the interested reader, he could refer to a brochure published by Victor Fleury, in which he once again explained his studies on the escapement in detail.
He was also the author of the book "Nouveaux principes sur le pendule appliqué à l'horlogerie" published in Paris in 1865. Towards the end of his career, he seems to have left Paris; for example, a gold-cased watch signed by Victor Fleury in Angers and for sale on the Paris art market bore the annotation: "médailles aux grandes expositions jusqu'en 1867" (medals at major exhibitions until 1867).
This table clock rests on a black wooden base with four filigree, turned columns. It is one of the rare pieces with Fleury's own escapement, which can be observed in its motion under the technically appealing glass case. On the outside of the back plate sits the small escapement wheel with 10 pins, in which the moving part of the "anchor fork" engages, but this only works for one direction of the pendulum swing. On the other hand, a long lever on the inside of the plate releases the gear train every second; a slim rocker turns 180 degrees and is stopped again by the pendulum swinging back. The fine adjustment, which raises and lowers the pendulum spring by means of a screw, and the polished screws with their spherical heads also make the gold-plated movement a visual highlight.¶