French coach clock with self strike and repeater Circa 1770

Highly complicated Louis XV coach clock with alarm
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An early silver highly complicated Louis XV coach clock with self strike, alarm clock and repeater, made by the royal watchmaker Julien Le Roy in Paris, France, circa 1770. This open faced watch has a lacquered outer case with silver mounts and sound openings, a silver pierced inner case, with delicate floral sound openings and a bell. The white enamel dial has an outer ring with black Arabic numerals for the minutes, an inner ring with black Roman numerals for the hours and unusual, presumably original, golden hands which include the alarm disc. The full plate movement has a verge escapement, a beautifully designed bridge and six cornered pillars.
Movement signed.
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Diameter: 13 cm
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Weight: 1.400 g
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Signed: Julien le Roy à Paris
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Julien Le Roy carriage clocks are very rare, of very high quality and sought after collector’s items. This clock also has an extremely unusual and rare striking mechanism construction, like hardly any other carriage clock.
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Julien Le Roy

Julien Le Roy is one of the clockmakers who contributed most to the progress and the reputation of French watch- and clockmaking. Born in Tours on August 6, 1686, and died in 1759 in Paris. He came to Paris in 1699. In 1713 he achieved his master’s degree and in the following years, he became a jury member of the Paris Guild of Watchmakers. Later, Le Roy became director of the Société des Arts de Genève and, in 1739, Court Watchmaker (French Horloger Ordinaire du Roi) under Louis XV, he had his private quarters in the Louvre. He improved almost all branches of clockmaking and many important inventions in the realm of time measurement are owed to him. In 1717, Julien Le Roy presented an equation clock to the Royal Academy of Sciences which showed the true time, the place of the sun and its decline. His most important discoveries concerned watch mechanisms. The adjustable ‘potence’ for the verge escape wheel considerably improved the escapement’s functioning and the steel end piece (coqueret) which allowed oil to be retained in the balance pivots in order to diminish frictional force, was quickly adopted by other watchmakers. He was the inventor of dumb repeating watches too, in 1740, he created a new arrangement that allowed the area allotted to the repeating work to be enlarged. This invention, called ‘à bâte levée’, was also adopted by his fellow clockmakers. In 1755 he invented a small anchor escapement used as a regulator for the repeating train. He contributed to the Encyclopédie by writing several articles on clockmaking together with his son Jean-Baptiste, the Academician. Le Roy ran his workshop in the Rue de Harlay in Paris until his death. Examples of his timepieces can be found in various important museums around the world, such as the Louvre and the Victoria and Albert Museum.