Pendulum Clock of the Princes of Carignano

Possibly Marie-Thérèse-Louise de Savoie Carignan, princesse de Lamballe (1749-1792), Paris, by 1792 [1];

Possibly by inheritance to her nephew, Charles-Emmanuel de Savoie Carignan, Prince of Carignano (1770-1800), Turin, Italy and Chaillot, France, 1792-1800 [2];

Possibly by descent to his son, Charles Albert de Savoie, King of Sardinia (1798-1849), 1800-1840;

His gift to Count Vittorio Seyssel d’Aix (1804-1856), July 1840-May 1853 [3];

His gift to his brother-in-law Count Robert (1806-1868) and his sister-in-law Countess Anne-Marie-Victorine (1821-1894) de Cornelissen, May 1853 [4];

Charles Léon Mannheim (1833-1910), Paris, by 1888 [5];

Alphonse de Rothschild (1827-1905), Paris, by July 7, 1903-1905 [6];

By descent to his son, Baron Edouard de Rothschild (1868-1949), Paris, 1905-at the latest 1941;

Confiscated from Baron Edouard de Rothschild by German National Socialist (Nazi) forces, by 1941-June 18, 1945 [7];

Recovered by Allied forces and taken to the Munich Central Collecting Point, June 18, 1945-June 25, 1946 [8];

Returned by Allied forces to France, June 25-November 19, 1946;

Restituted by France to Baron Edouard de Rothschild, Paris, November 19, 1946 [9];

Sale, Dessins - Miniatures, Tableaux Anciens, Meubles et Objets d’Art, Tapis-Tapisseries, Drouot-Richelieu, Paris, June 26, 2002, lot 142;

With Hubert Guerrand-Hèrmes (d. 2016), Paris, by 2016;

Purchased at his posthumous sale, Collection Hubert Guerrand-Hèrmes, Sotheby’s Paris, December 13, 2023, lot 35, by Galerie Steinitz, 2023-2025 [10];

Purchased from Galerie Steinitz by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 2025. 

NOTES:

[1] Marie-Thérèse-Louise de Savoie Carignan, princesse de Lamballe was presented to the French royal court at Versailles in 1770. She became superintendent of Queen Marie-Antoinette’s household in 1775 and accompanied the royal family to Paris in October 1789, where she was murdered by a crowd of revolutionaries in 1792. The clock’s provenance is described in a catalogue for the exhibition, L’Art Français sous Louis XIV et sous Louis XV, au profit de l’Oeuvre de l’Hospitalité de Nuit, Maison Quantin, Paris, 1888, no. 140: “Don de la reine Marie-Antoinette à la duchesse de Lamballe qui l'a laissèe à son héritier le roi Charles-Albert de Savoie Carginan qui à son tour l'a offerte au comte de Seyssel d'Ex, qui l'a donnée au comte et à la comtesse de Cornelissen.” [“Gift from Queen Marie-Antoinette to the Duchess of Lamballe who left it to her heir King Charles-Albert of Savoy Carignan who in turn offered it to the Count of Seyssel d'Ex, who gave it to the Count and Countess of Cornelissen.”] In fact, the heir to the Princess [not Duchess] de Lamballe was her nephew, Charles-Emmanuel [see note 2].

[2] Marie-Thérèse-Louise wrote a will dated October 15, 1791, naming her nephew Charles-Emmanuel as her heir, just before returning to France to support the Queen during the French Revolution, after spending several months in England and the Austrian Netherlands. Archives nationales, Paris, AP/300(I)/475, archives de la maison de France (Branche Orléans). The will is reproduced in Adolphe de Lescure, La Princesse de Lamballe, Marie-Thérèse-Louise de Savoie-Carignan, sa vie, sa mort (1749-1792), d’après des documents inédits (Paris: Henri Plon, 1864), 280-85. Following Marie-Thérèse-Louise’s death, Charles-Emmanuel requested the release of his aunt’s property on April 3, 1793. On August 31, 1797, he successfully recovered works of art that had been seized from her home in Passy and sent to the Nesle repository with the property of other émigrés, but this clock is not included in the inventory of those objects (Archives nationales, Répertoire numérique des cotes F/17/*/372 et F/17/*/373, Comité d'instruction publique: registres des objets du dépôt de la rue de Beaune, dit dépôt de Nesle (janvier 1794-mai 1797).

[3] One of two inscriptions engraved in rectangular cartouches on one side of the clock’s base reads: “Donné par la Roi Charles Albert au C^te de Seyssel en Juillet 1840” [“Given by King Charles Albert to the Count of Seyssel in July 1840”]. The Count de Seyssel held numerous roles within King Charles Albert’s household, including Captain of the Artillery and Director of the Royal Armory. The same year King Charles-Albert gifted him this clock, the Count de Seyssel published a catalogue of the armor collection he had been instrumental in building on the King’s behalf: Armeria Antica E Moderna Di G.M. Carlo Alberto, descritta dal Conte Vittario Seyssel D'Aix (Torino: stab. tip. Fontana, 1840).

[4] The second of two inscriptions engraved on the clock’s base [see note 3] reads: “Offert comme souvenir reconnaissa^t. à ses bons Amis R^te. et A^te. Cornelissen en mai 1853” [“Offered as a grateful souvenir to his good friends Rte. and Ate. Cornelissen in May 1853”]. The Countess de Cornelissen was born Anne-Marie-Victorine Drake Y Castillo and was the sister of Count de Seyssel’s second wife, Antonia Drake Y Castillo (1816-1853).

[5] Mannheim lent the clock to the 1888 L’Art Français sous Louis XIV et sous Louis XV exhibition in Paris.

[6] Mannheim had a long-standing association with the Rothschild family, acting as their agent and dealer from at least 1870. This clock was included in a July 7, 1903 inventory of 2, rue Saint-Florentin, Paris, in the Salon de Rubens, as Pendule (obélisque) medaillons sur les 4 faces surmonté d'un aigle bronzes doré, 50,000 , although its source is not identified. Rothschild Archive, London, Lafite Papers, OE316, Alphonse de Rothschild: succession, will and estate papers, Inventory of precious objects in the St. Florentin house, 1903, p. 30. With thanks to Natalie Attwood, Deputy Archivist, The Rothschild Archive, for her assistance with this research.

[7] The clock was inventoried at the Jeu de Paume, Paris, by the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg, the National Socialist agency responsible for confiscating art and cultural property in Nazi-occupied countries, and assigned number R 4533. It was later transferred to the Nazi storage depot in a salt mine at Alt Aussee, Austria. See National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, MD, RG 260, Microfilm M1943, reel 24 and Bundesarchiv, Koblenz, Germany, B323/284, Inventory and crate lists of the collections confiscated by the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg, vol. 1/5: Rothschild Collection, R4000-End.

[8] Following the discovery of the artworks in the Alt Aussee salt mine by Allied forces in May 1945, the clock was transferred to the Munich Central Collecting Point on June 18, 1945, where it was assigned inventory number 17. It was repatriated to France on June 25, 1946. Copies of the ERR and Munich property cards are available in the Nelson-Atkins curatorial file.

[9] Centre des archives diplomatiques de la Courneuve, Services français de récupération artistique, Série CRA – Dossiers de reclamation adressés à la Commission de récupération artistique (1939-1974), 209SUP/12bis – Dossier 45.224, p. 57.

[10] According to Benjamin Steinitz, in an email to William Keyse Rudolph, January 9, 2025.