This clock represents a departure from the type of work Breguet is mostly known for - watches, carriage clocks, and precision timekeepers. He did however make a small number of other clocks featuring finely sculpted bronzes, the majority of which were made by the celebrated Pierre-Philippe Thomire. The Paris museum of Arts and Métiers has several in its collection; one is in the Royal collection in Buckingham Palace. Pierre-Philippe Thomire 1751-1843 a sculptor, bronze-worker, caster and chaser, he was the son of chaser Luc Philippe Thomire. He studied at the Académie de Saint-Luc with Houdon and Pajou, then with the chaser Gouthière, whose work influenced Thomire until the First Empire. Troubled by financial difficulties, and unreliable in delivering his commissions on time, Gouthière left the field open to his young pupil. Having already successfully come to the public?s notice in 1775 due to his collaboration with Louis Prieur on the decoration of Louis XVI?s coronation coach, Thomire went into business on his own account in 1776. Shortly afterwards, he took up the position left vacant at the Manufacture de Sèvres by the death of Jean-Claude Duplessis. The accounts of the Garde-Meuble record him as a supplier and collaborator with Benneman, furniture maker to Queen Marie-Antoinette. This has resulted in the work of Thomire being systematically attributed in error to Gouthière, for neither man generally signed his work. Thomire w s successful almost immediately, becoming bronze sculptor to the Manufacture de Sèvres, supplier to the City of Paris; and gaining a reputation as the best bronze artist of the reign of Louis XVI and the First Empire.