426.    $250

S. Marti figural, ca. 1870.  This is a pretty spectacular-looking clock, but it’s had some help. It did not start out black with gold highlights; it appears to have been a more typical bronze, or perhaps even more likely, gilded. The base metal is spelter.  Somebody did a fine job of painting and adding the gold highlights once the gilding was gone. The figures, a young woman and a boy who are on their way back from fishing (or a trip to the fish market), are painted slightly differently from the clock base.  I don’t see any missing ornamentation, although it is unclear to me what the boy’s long rod represents. The black dial has inset gold Roman numerals and there is a beveled glass in the sash.  The pendule de Paris movement has a count wheel for the strike, dating it to pre-1880; it is stamped faintly with the S Marti logo.  It is running and striking, but the bell has been lost.  $250-$500.