Delépine-barrois: A Giant Engraved Carriage Clock

A giant engraved Corniche carriage clock by Delépine-Barrois of Paris and Saint Nicolas d'Aliermont.

The eight-day duration movement has a platform lever escapement and strikes the hours and half-hours on a gong with a repeat via a button to the top. The backplate is stamped with the serial number 730 along with the hand setting arrow design as used by Delépine-Barrois, fine carriage clock makers with a workshop in Saint Nicolas d'Aliermont.

The white enamel dial has black Roman hour numerals, Arabic five-minute outer numerals and blued steel spade hands.

The giant case is of excellent quality and is fully engraved with floral and scroll decoration.

I have been undertaking research into the clockmakers Delépine-Barrois and identified them to be the married couple Ludovic Delépine and Marie Barrois.

For further details of Delépine-Barrois, their relationship with other carriage clock makers and images of their workshops follow the link to www.extence.co.uk/exhibition-catalogues and open the article:

Carriage Clock Makers of Saint Nicolas illustrated by Postcards.

In Summary:

The Delépine of Delépine-Barrois is not Charles-Boromé taking on a new partner after the death of Charles Canchy, as previously assumed but in fact a relative of his named Ludovic Delépine and his wife Marie Barrois. Marie was a Parisian girl who had no prior horological experience as such. Her father had died in Paris and her widowed mother then married her sister's brother-in-law, the horloger Gustave Sauteur. They moved to Saint Nicolas d'Aliermont in circa 1880, where the Sauteur family had been horologists for many years, and where Marie

met and married Ludovic Delépine in 1884. Together they formed the Delépine-Barrois business that became one of the finest carriage clock producers of the late-Victorian period and eventually succeeded Charles-Borome Delépine following his death in 1891 and therefore by descent were successors to Honoré Pons. They originally lived in a house next to the church with workshops set up in the gardens but moved across the town square to the prominent house with workshops that is well-known having been depicted on many postcards of the time. It is quite probable

that these premises were originally built by the step-uncle to Marie Barrois, the prominent horologist Augustin Sauteur, brother to Gustave. Both house and workshops still exist, albeit the latter as apartments, situated behind a large hedge

off the main street adjacent to the cinema.

Ludovic and Marie Delépine returned to Paris in 1912, having had an horological business running in tandem with that in Saint Nicolas from at least 1901, and their business, along with the house and workshops, were taken over by the

Couaillet family

Leigh Extence offers for sale antique clocks that are fully researched and validated.

Leigh is acknowledged as the world's leading expert on French carriage clocks of the 19th century and has lectured both home and abroad on the subject for over ten years.

He has had many papers published on the subject and his research is used by many of the leading auction houses in their descriptions.

Research Articles and Exhibition Catalogues are available to view on our website:

www.extence.co.uk

Unless otherwise stated, all clocks have been fully overhauled and are guaranteed as such.