The Portico clock is believed to be of French origin. It can also be called the Four-poster or Canopy Clock, but
Portico is more common. It is an Empire-style clock. An example shows the four-column structure between a base and a top, the clock dial lying in the middle of the front columns, leaving the pendulum open to beat in the middle. Honoré Pons (1773-1851), a French clockmaker born in Grenoble, designed and manufactured the movement of this clock. The French state commissioned Pons to revive the clock industry in Saint-Nicolas d’Aliermont, Normandy, where he settled in 1807. A crest of the 1827 Gold Medal is engraved on the movement plate. Unfortunately, we do not know the cabinetmaker who designed and manufactured the marquetry case, of which there are several examples on the market with decorative variants. This clock was manufactured between 1827 and 1834 when Pons received a new gold medal, followed by others in 1839 and 1844. Pons sold his workshops and equipment to the clockmaker Borromeo Délepine in 1846, the latter continuing Pons’s work. He was signing his clocks “Honoré Pons à Paris.”
