A fine French early 19th century skeleton clock, signed Le Roy à Paris, of "grande complication" type: a two-train movement (going and striking) fully exposed and fretted in the French manner, indicating hours, minutes, the phase and age of the moon, the day of the week (with its associated deity), the date of the month, and the month of the year with the relevant zodiacal sign, raised on a black-and-white veined marble plinth with gilt bun feet.

This clock corresponds precisely, in form, dial layout and complications, to the example published by Derek Roberts as fig. 35. Roberts describes that clock as a French skeleton clock of the early 19th century, signed Le Roy à Paris, with a two-train movement combining a count-wheel bell strike with a pin-wheel escapement and gridiron pendulum, its enamel dials showing the phases of the moon, the day of the week paired with its associated deity, the date, and the month together with the corresponding zodiacal sign. He records its height as 21¾ inches (55 cm).

The dial arrangement rises in three tiers:

• Main time dial: a white enamel chapter ring with Roman numerals for the hours and an outer Arabic minute track (5–60), pierced blued-steel spade hands, the arch signed in script Le Roy and, on the opposite side of the arch, à Paris. The centre is fully skeletonized, opening onto the going train, motion-work, and a steel potence, so the wheelwork is visible through the dial itself.
• Moon-phase/age dial, mounted above on a hinged gilt bracket, a deep blue enamel disc gilt-sprinkled with stars, the rotating moon passing across a painted "hill" horizon, with a calibrated arc numbered 5–25 indicating the age of the moon in days.
• Three subsidiary calendar rings below the main dial, each on white enamel with blued-steel hands pivoted on cabochon-cut blue paste jewels: one for the day of the week, each day paired with its associated classical deity (following the planetary/astrological tradition, e.g. Lundi/Moon, Mardi/Mars, Mercredi/Mercury), one for the date of the month (1–31), and a smaller one for the month of the year, each paired with its corresponding zodiacal sign.

The movement is a fully skeletonized two-train movement (going and striking) on shaped and pierced gilt-brass plates, visible from all sides. Per Roberts' description of this model, the striking train sounds the hours on a bell via a count-wheel (locking-plate) system, the going train is regulated by a pin-wheel escapement, and the whole is controlled by a gridiron (compensated) pendulum, visible at the rear of the movement as the substantial polished steel element with a large spoked wheel above it. The mechanism is conceived so that it is itself the principal decorative feature of the clock, in the tradition of the great Parisian pendules squelettes.

The case consists of two shaped brass side-columns (in the manner of paired pilasters) carrying the tiered dial assembly, standing on a rectangular black marble base with contrasting white veining, raised on four brass ball/bun feet. This is a typical presentation for high-grade French skeleton clocks of the late 18th/early 19th century, where the marble base was left deliberately plain so as not to compete visually with the openwork movement.

The Signature: "Le Roy à Paris"

The signature belongs to the celebrated Parisian horological dynasty founded by Basile Le Roy (b. 1730), who was apprenticed to the master watchmaker Joseph Quétin in 1747. Although he had no watchmaking ancestors of his own, Basile bore the already famous name of the genius watchmakers Julien Le Roy (1686-1759) and his son Pierre (1717-1785). It was Basile's son, (Basile-)Charles Le Roy, who established the house's fortunes proper: in 1785, Charles Le Roy was awarded the title of Master Watchmaker at the age of 20, and with his father's help opened a boutique and workshop under the arcades of the Palais Royal, an address the firm would retain for over a century. The house held appointments as clockmaker to Emperor Napoleon, Madame Mère, the Duke of Bourbon, and Princess Pauline, and was later appointed Purveyor to the King and the Duke d'Orléans in 1836.

The firm passed through successive generations. Charles-Louis Le Roy joined in 1828 to form Le Roy & Fils; the business later passed to Casimir Halley Desfontaines, and finally in 1889 to Louis Leroy, under whom it became "L. Leroy & Cie," the form under which the house is still known today. An inventory of the royal palace showed that at least 27 clocks bore Le Roy's signature, a measure of the firm's standing among Parisian horlogers of the period.

The simple, unadorned form of signature seen on this clock, "Le Roy" / "à Paris" without an accompanying street address or "et Fils," is broadly consistent with work produced by the house in the years around 1790–1820, before the firm's later, more elaborate trade signatures (e.g. "L. Leroy & Cie à Paris," often with a Boulevard de la Madeleine address) came into use in the second half of the 19th century.

Attribution, Dating & Publication

Skeletonized astronomical/calendar clocks of this "cathedral" or "tiered" type (a main time dial flanked or surmounted by a moon-phase disc and multiple calendar sub-dials, the whole raised on a plain marble plinth) represent one of the summits of Parisian clockmaking of the Directoire and Empire periods, when makers such as Robert Robin, Lepaute, Antide Janvier, Deschamps, Verneuil, Nicole (Nicol à Paris), and Le Roy competed to produce ever more complex openwork calendar movements as showpieces of technical skill.

This example is published: Derek Roberts, Continental and American Skeleton Clocks, Schiffer Publishing, 1989, p. 48, fig. 35, where it appears with a photo credit to Phillips (the London auction house), captioned as a French skeleton clock of the early 19th century signed Le Roy à Paris.

Roberts discusses this clock in a section devoted to a group of related skeleton clocks, some signed Verneuil, a few anonymous, and two (including this one) signed Le Roy, which he treats as closely related "in their overall concept and execution." He notes that the case and plate shapes across this group are similar to those used by Berthoud and to certain movements he attributes tentatively to Nicol, raising the possibility that plates, or even unfinished movements ("blancs-roulants"), were supplied by one workshop to several retailing makers, a common practice in Parisian horology of the period. Of the eight clocks discussed in this group, all but one stand on a figured marble base and are fitted with a gridiron pendulum, and Roberts dates the whole group to the Empire period (c. 1800–1815).

This dating, and the detailed movement description (count-wheel bell strike, pin-wheel escapement, gridiron pendulum, enamel dials for moon-phase, day/deity, date, and month/zodiac, height 21¾ in./55 cm), can now be taken as the documented specification for this clock rather than as a stylistic estimate.