French Louis XV cartel, Jean Baptiste Baillon

The fourteen-day going train is driven by a spring barrel. It is regulated by an anchor escapement in combination with a pendulum hung on silk. The movement has a second spring barrel that drives the striking train, which sounds the hours and half hours on a single bell. The white enamelled dial features blue Roman numerals for the hours and an outer ring indicating the minutes in black Arabic numerals. Between the Roman hour indicators are black fleurs-de-lys. The openwork hour and minute hands are fire-gilt brass. The clock is signed in the centre: JEAN BAPTISTE BAILLON.
The rear of the movement is also signed: JB  Baillon AParis No 1918

The fire-gilt bronze case incorporates asymmetrically shaped, stylised acanthus leaves and has an openwork lenticle at the bottom.  At the bottom is an openwork lenticle. The entire case is encircled by a flower garland. On the right flank of the case stands a crane on one leg. In the claws of the retracted leg it holds a stone, symbolising watchfulness.

Baillon
Jean-Baptiste Baillon III (d. 1772) was one of the most skilled and innovative makers of his day. A large part of his success was due to his competence in setting up a large and flourishing private factory in Saint-Germain-en-Laye – a factory that was unique in the eighteenth-century clockmaking world. Baillon's father, the Parisian maître Jean-Baptiste II (d. 1757), and his grandfather Jean-Baptiste I from Rouen were both clockmakers, as was his own son, Jean-Baptiste IV Baillon (1752 - ca. 1773). Baillon himself was admitted to the guild as maître-horloger. His first high-profile appointment came in 1738, when he was made Valet de Chambre-Horloger Ordinaire de la Reine. He was subsequently appointed Premier Valet de Chambre de la Reine at some point before 1748, then Marie-Antoinette’s Premier Valet de Chambre and Valet de Chambre-Horloger Ordinaire de la Dauphine in 1770. In 1738, he established a place of business at – appropriately – Place Dauphine, moving to Rue Dauphine in 1751.

Thanks to his success, Jean-Baptiste Baillon amassed a tremendous fortune: at the time of his death on 8 April 1772, his wealth was estimated at 384,000 livres. Baillon’s works can nowadays be viewed at some of the world’s most prestigious collections, including the Louvre in Paris, the Palace of Versailles, Neues Schloss Bayreuth, and the Metropolitan Museum in New York.

Antoine-Nicolas Martiniere
A.N. Martiniere (1706 – 1784) obtained maître (master) status in 1720 and was one of the most prominent enamellers during Louis XV’s reign. As such, his customers included the most highly skilled of clockmakers. An article published in Le Mercure de France in April 1740 reported that the king himself had placed an order for an exceptionally large, enameled dial. Other enamellers had been unable to guarantee satisfactory results, but Martiniere managed to craft a piece that pleased the king greatly, and he was named Pensionnaire du Roi (Pensioner of the King) a year later.