French silver coach clock with self-strike and alarm Circa 1650

Silver self-striking coach clock with alarm by Barthélémy Macé
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A high-quality French silver open faced hour striking one-handed coach clock with alarm, circa 1650-1720. Plain case back, the band richly florally pierced and engraved. White enamel dial with Roman hours, a central turnable gilt alarm disc and blued steel hands. Fire gilt full plate movement, chain and fusee, three barrels, two hammers, rear bell, verge escapement, four-arm iron balance and an engraved and pierced balance bridge. Movement signed Gaudron à Paris.
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Diameter: 109 mm
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Weight: 1.150 g
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Signed: Barthélémy Macé à Blois
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Two members of the Macé family of Blois, father and son, were both called Barthélémy. Both were known as makers of fine timepieces. The father married in 1630 and died in 1662, he was most likely the maker of this carriage clock.
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Antoine Gaudron most likely updated this clock around 1720 by adding a regulator for the balance spring and the cock. The intricately finished balance cock is signed ‘Gaudron à Paris’. This refers to Antoine Gaudron, who was born in Blois around 1640. He eventually moved to Paris and became a master in Saint-Germain des Près in 1665. In 1698 he and his sons established a company that traded among other things in watches and clocks, jewellery, bronzes and porcelain. There are many marvellous pocket watches and table clocks by Gaudron with cases that were created by the finest ebonistes of his time such as André-Charles Boulle. Gaudron is known as one of the first makers in Paris to have built pendulum clocks. During the controversy over the equation of time, his son Pierre claimed that his father had created the first equation clock in 1688. Antoine Gaudron died in 1714, a wealthy man of excellent repute.