A fine French Empire ormolu and antique marble vert mantel clock of "Astronomie" designed by Jean-Andre Reiche in 1807. Set on four toupee feet the classically draped maiden representing Urania is sitting holders dividers at a star globe with a star map behind her and a pile of text books before her. The case is decorated to the front and sides with applied ormolu stars and a fine ormolu mount of a cupid looking through an elaborate telescope. A fine version of a rare and popular clock. Superb original mercury gilding and very fine casting and chasing. Fine white enamel convex dial signed F Badet a Paris, most unusually this is a female clockmaker Louise Francoise Badet who is known to have been working at the Rue St-Denis in 1803. The cast and chasd gilt bronze hands are of an unusual and very delicate form. 8 day bell striking movement on a countwheel with silk suspended pendulum. 15 inches high by 12 inches wide and 4 inches deep ( 37.5 cms high by 30 cms wide and 10 cms deep). See ottomeyer & Proschell " Vergodete Bronzen" pp.375. Reiche often used women as the subject in clocks where learning or technology was involved indicating the feeling of emancipation for women in the new France after the revolution. France. 1807.