French striking and repeating silver coach clock Circa 1770

Silver coach clock by royal watchmaker Julien Le Roy
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An early and highly complicated French Louis XV coach clock with self-strike, alarm and repeater, circa 1770.
Two cases; lacquered outer case with silver mountings and sound openings, and a silver inner case pierced, filigree floral sound openings, and with a bell. Very beautiful enamel dial with Roman radial hours, outer minutes track with Arabic five minutes numerals, probably original hands, and underneath the alarm disc. Full plate movement, beautifully designed bridge, plate signed, 6-cornered pillars, and verge escapement.
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Diameter: 130 mm
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Weight: 1400 g
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Signed: Julien Le Roy
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The clock is intact and has a wonderful sound, the inner case has a lateral dent, lacquering of the outer case with imperfections. Coach clocks by Julien Le Roy are very rare, of very high-quality and wanted collector’s items. This watch also has an extremely unusual and rare striking mechanism, unlike any other carriage watch.
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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.