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JACQUES NÈVE

Horloger d’Art + 32 (0)477 27 19 08 - jneve@horloger.net - www.horloger.net

DUSSAULT, 15 Passage Choiseul à Paris CHARLES CHEVALIER Ingénieur

EXCEPTIONAL TABLE REGULATOR WITH COMPLICATIONS

Circa 1860 H. 49 cm, W. 30 cm, D. 19 cm

H. 19 ¼", W. 12", D. 7 ½"

Signed Dussault, 15 Passage Choiseul on the main dial and Charles-Chevalier Ingénieur/Arthur-Chevalier Fils et Succr, Palais-Royal, 158, Paris on the side glasses.

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DUSSAULT, 15 Passage Choiseul à Paris.

CHARLES CHEVALIER Ingénieur

EXCEPTIONAL TABLE REGULATOR WITH COMPLICATIONS

Circa 1860.

Signed Dussault, 15 Passage Choiseul on the main dial and Charles-Chevalier Ingénieur/Arthur-Chevalier Fils et Succr, Palais-Royal, 158, Paris on the side glasses.

Paris- style movement of large size, adapted for all the numerous complications and indications displayed on the dials. Steel suspension with Brocot- style adjusting rod, pinwheel escapement, with the pins on the same side of the wheel, beating the half-seconds, Ellicott- type thermal compensation pendulum, with one steel rod and two brass rods. Countwheel strike for the hours and the half hours on a silvered bell. Autonomy 30 days.

Three enamel dials: the main, signed Dussault, 15 Passage Choiseul à Paris, with Roman numerals and three blued steel hands indicating the hours, the minutes, and the seconds on the external rail, a subsidiary dial above number VI for setting the alarm. The lower left dial with perpetual calendar, indicating the days of the week, the days of the month, the moonphase, the month of the year and taking into account the 28-, 29-, 30- and 31- day months, as well as leap years. The lower right dial with Bourdon- type aneroid barometer made by Bourdon & Richard.

High quality ormolu case with five glasses, front and rear doors for easy access and a good view from all sides. Both side glasses each with a mercury thermometer, the one on the left indicating Centigrade and Reaumur scales, the one on the right indicating Centigrade and Fahrenheit scales. The four graduations also indicate “Human Temperature (chaleur humaine), baths (bains), silk worm (ver à soie), average (tempéré), ice (glace)”.

Dimensions : H. 49 cm, W. 30 cm, D. 19 cm – H. 19 ¼", W. 12 ", D. 7 ½ ".

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A CLOCK MADE FOR THE PARIS UNIVERSAL EXHIBITIONS

View of the 1867 Paris Universal Exhibition

This regulator is a very typical example of the technologic and scientific emulation in Paris during the 1860’s. During these years, French production of clocks reached an exceptional yearly sale of 33 million Francs. (See Catalogue général, Exposition Universelle de 1867 à Paris, Classe 23, p. 48).

It has three dials, one alarum, and two mercury thermometers. All this was the work of the best clockmakers and engineers of that special period, and assembled by the bronzier Dussault1, one of the best of his trade under the Second Empire in Paris. It was obviously made with all possible options available at the time for this type of clock. As indicated by Richard Chavigny2, the perpetual calendar on the lower left was very likely made by Charles Requier from a simple mechanical calendar later perfected into a perpetual calendar. The latter was indeed exhibited by him at the Paris exhibition in 1867. The aneroid barometer on the lower right is the work of the engineer Eugène Bourdon (1808-1884) who was also specialist in industrial dial gauges. Aneroid barometers of this type are extremely rare; this confirms the rarity of this clock.

1 Dussault was a bronzier established in the Passage Choiseul. He manufactured and sold quality bronze work, three-pieces mantle clocks, chandeliers, and various types of decorative bronze artefacts.

2 We would like to thank Richard Chavigny, consultant, honorary professor from the Paris Academy, specialist in antique horology, for all the information he generously passed on on this subject.

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The two side thermometers made by Charles-Chevalier Ingénieur/Arthur-Chevalier Fils et Succr, Palais-Royal, 158, Paris were two remarkable options made to illustrate and complete this exceptional clock. The Chevalier house was very well renowned in Paris for more than 120 years from 1760 until 1889. Four generations of instrument makers sold experimental, physical and optical instruments as well as chemical, astronomical, mineralogical and surgery instruments « Instruments de physique et d’optique expérimentale, mais aussi de chimie, d’astronomie, de minéralogie, de chirurgie, etc.». Its founder Charles Chevalier won five gold medals at the National Industry Exhibitions and one first class medal at the 1855 Universal Exhibition for the whole of his display there.

A general report from the 1855 Universal Exhibition attests that he was very appreciated by his peers: “We had to include M. Charles Chevalier into the recognised optical instrument makers as this was the speciality he was best at; we can also note that he excelled in a manufacture of other instruments as shown by his display at the Exhibition. Exhibited here are: a large size microscope, a diffraction bench, a telescope, various photographic lenses, one of which was one of the very first made of several lenses ever produced, an observatory barometer, compasses and pneumatic machines of very fine manufacture. All these instruments testify to new inventions that is the constant activity of their

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designer.” He was the first French maker of microscopes using achromatic solar light or oxy-hydrogen gas light. As an engineer, he played an important role in the development of photography. He was very interested in the Daguerreotype process and worked closely with Niepce and Daguerre in the design of lenses for this new type of apparatus.

Chevalier lens on a daguerreotype-type by Susse Frères

Charles Chevalier died in 1859 and his son Arthur succeeded him. He successfully exhibited in 1862 in the photography section of the Universal Exhibition. He also exhibited eyeglasses and binoculars for marine use in the 1867 Exhibition. Arthur Chevalier was the successful director of this family company that was established at 158 Palais Royal in Paris until he died in 1874. He also published several works about the technical discoveries of his father and an illustrated catalogue of experimental physics, experimental opticals, chemistry, astronomy, minerology, surgical, etc. instruments that are manufactured and sold in the workshops and shops of the Charles-Chevalier Ingénieur house. This was published in 1860 (see annexes below).

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DOCUMENTARY ANNEXES:

THE CHARLES-CHEVALIER HOUSE

ARTHUR CHEVALIER, SONS AND SUCCESSORS

Louis Vincent Chevalier founded his optical instruments shop in 1760, on the quai de l’Horloge in Paris. His three sons carried on in the trade: Louis, Nicolas-Marie (who had a short career) and Jacques Louis Vincent (1771 – 1841). This last one pursued in the family’s footsteps at n° 69 Quai de l’Horloge until his death in 1841. After that, Pierre Ambroise Richebourg, an optical engineer and former apprentice of Vincent, succeeded him at the workshop of 69 Quai de l’Horloge.

Charles Louis Chevalier (1804-1859) is the third generation of this famous family of optical engineers. He worked with his father Vincent from 1823 to 1830, then went on to create his own workshop at No 163 Palais-Royal – Galerie Valois. It is there that he offered his own microscopes for sale. He went on to win 5 medals from the Société d’Encouragement, 5 gold medals at the Exposition Nationale de l’Industrie and one First Class Medal at the 1855 Exposition Universelle for the whole of his exhibition there. He was the first French maker of the solar achromatic microscope that was to become one of the most extraordinary modern optical instruments.

Charles’ son Arthur Chevalier (1830-1874) worked by his side for a few years and succeeded him at the Maison d’Optique after his death on May 8, 1859. He pursued the family business until his own death in 1874, and the optical instruments workshops finally ceased their activity in 1889.

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