A rare and important early hexagonal gilt-brass tower table clock, French, early 16th century

A rare and important early hexagonal gilt-brass tower table clock, French, early 16th century
the brass dial with roman numerals, touch pins and single blued steel hand, two-train iron posted movement with well cut facetted gothic pillars, fusee for the going train and verge and foliot escapement, internally cut countwheel riveted to striking barrel with engraved arabic numerals and arrow head pointer, the strike with verge-type governor, later bell, the gilt-brass hexagonal case with fusee door and striking aperture, surmounted by a finely pierced and chased dome, each panel depicting putti flanking a vacant cartouche below a vase of foliage, all upon a molded detachable base stamped inside P within a circle.
height 6 in. (15.2 cm.)
The earliest spring driven clocks date from the mid-fifteenth century and were probably made in Germany. In France, spring driven clocks first appeared about 1480 during the reign of Louis XI but it was during the French Renaissance, throughout the sixteenth century, that the clocks took on an architectural style usually in the form of a small hexagonal tower with domed and ribbed cresting, modeled after the apse of a Gothic church. To compare similar examples see Tardy, French Clocks the World Over, part one.
PROVENANCE:
Inventory no. 1253