The Thuret family of clockmakers established themselves as one of the outstanding craftsman-dynasties in 17th- and 18th-century

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

. Their clocks are signed "Thuret", and distinguishing which member of the Thuret family made a specific clock is sometimes an unrewarding effort.

History

Isaac II Thuret (1630–1706), one of the first French clockmakers to make

pendulum clock A pendulum clock is a clock that uses a pendulum, a swinging weight, as its timekeeping element. The advantage of a pendulum for timekeeping is that it is an approximate harmonic oscillator: It swings back and forth in a precise time interval dep ...

s, held the royal appointment. His son Jacques III Thuret (1669–1738), was appointed

clockmaker A clockmaker is an artisan who makes and/or repairs clocks. Since almost all clocks are now factory-made, most modern clockmakers only repair clocks. Modern clockmakers may be employed by jewellers, antique shops, and places devoted strictly t ...

Louis XIV of France LouisXIV (Louis-Dieudonné; 5 September 16381 September 1715), also known as Louis the Great () or the Sun King (), was King of France from 1643 until his death in 1715. His verified reign of 72 years and 110 days is the List of longest-reign ...

in 1694. A perquisite of the royal appointment was the use of workshops in the Galeries du Louvre, where since the time of

Henri IV Henry IV (; 13 December 1553 – 14 May 1610), also known by the epithets Good King Henry (''le Bon Roi Henri'') or Henry the Great (''Henri le Grand''), was King of Navarre (as Henry III) from 1572 and King of France from 1589 to 16 ...

, the outstanding artists, designers and craftsmen were granted workshop spaces, fostering cross-fertilisation among the arts. As one consequence there are numerous clocks by the Thuret dynasty in cases of rich tortoiseshell and brass marquetry designed by

André Charles Boulle André — sometimes transliterated as Andre — is the French and Portuguese form of the name Andrew and is now also used in the English-speaking world. It used in France, Quebec, Canada and other French-speaking countries, as well in Portugal ...

; one such remarkable clock by Jacques Thuret or his father is at the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art, colloquially referred to as the Met, is an Encyclopedic museum, encyclopedic art museum in New York City. By floor area, it is the List of largest museums, third-largest museum in the world and the List of larg ...

in New York. Another example, the

Barometer Clock ''Barometer Clock (Boulle)'' by André-Charles Boulle is a late seventeenth-century French clock created out of ebony, turtle shell, brass, gilt bronze, and enamel. The clock case is decorated on all sides and was intended as either a centerpiec ...

, is at the

Frick Collection The Frick Collection (colloquially known as the Frick) is an art museum on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It was established in 1935 to preserve the collection of the industrialist Henry Clay Frick. The collection (museum) ...

, also in New York. Jacques III Thuret married a daughter of the royal designer

Jean Bérain the Elder Jean Berain the Elder (1640 – 24 January 1711) was a drawing, draughtsman and designer, painter and engraver of ornament, the artistic force in the Royal office of the Menus-Plaisirs du Roi where all the designs originated for court spectacle, ...

, whose designs he assembled and published; his daughter Suzanne married the painter, draughtsman and engraver

Charles François Silvestre Charles is a masculine given name predominantly found in English and French speaking countries. It is from the French form ''Charles'' of the Proto-Germanic name (in runic alphabet) or ''*karilaz'' (in Latin alphabet), whose meaning was ...

.Michael Bryan, ''Dictionary of Painters and Engravers: Biographical and Critical'', ''s.v.'' "Charles François Silvestre".

Notes

External links

A Longitude Timekeeper - Isaac Thuret with the Balance Spring invented by Christiaan Huygens
French clockmakers {{France-bio-stub