Originally owned by Paris de Monmartel, Louis XV’s banker and god-father of Madame de Pompadour, this sophisticated time-piece tells both mean time and solar time. It also shows the date, the rising and setting of the sun and moon, the passage of the sun across the Zodiac, and perhaps most interestingly of all, it can tell the time anywhere in the northern hemisphere. Set in a magnificent case and nearly three metres tall, Monmartel’s clock would have made a striking statement about his wealth and scientific patronage to his banking and trading associates.

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