Tête de Poupée Clock

A gifted craftsman, André-Charles Boulle was also a creative designer who invented new types of clocks and furniture, including a mantel clock called tête de poupée (doll’s head clock) because its profile resembles a figure’s head and shoulders. Popular in the late seventeenth century, these clocks almost always combine a turtle-shell veneer with engraved brass and pewter in the shape of arabesques and foliage known as Boulle marque­try, for which the cabinetmaker to Louis XIV achieved international renown. When the back­ground is in brass or pewter, as here, the marque­try is said to be in contre-partie. When turtle shell serves as the background, the marquetry is in première-partie. Boulle often collaborated with the clockmaker Balthazar Martinot II, who signed this movement. Martinot supplied clocks to his aristocratic and wealthy French clientele, as well as to the King of Siam.

Source: Vignon, Charlotte.The Frick Collection Decorative Arts Handbook. New York: The Frick Collection/Scala, 2015.