White, black and red veined marble "Hommage au capitaine MAR - Lot 78

White, black and red veined marble "Hommage au capitaine MARION-DUFRESNE" clock, Paris, circa 1790. Enameled dial mounted on a black Doric column, with carved white marble decoration depicting scrolls of mist ending in flowering horns of plenty. The rounded edge of the dial features a map engraved in black, with the words: "Kerguelen, I. vue par Marion en 1772". The black Roman numeral dial reads "Paris". Rectangular white marble base adorned with a frieze of antique-style figures. "Tribute clock" to the navigator and explorer Marc Joseph Marion du Fresne, known as MARION-DUFRESNE (1724-1772). 52 x 28 cm Marc Joseph Marion du Fresne, known as MARION-DUFRESNE (1724-1772), whose discoveries in 1772 included Marion Island, Prince Edward Island and the Crozet Islands. At the age of 11, his father took him aboard for the first time in 1735 on a Compagnie des Indes ship bound for Pondicherry, as an ensign ad honores (unpaid). During his many voyages to America, Africa, the Ile de France (now Mauritius) and the Indies, he became a friend of Captain d'Après de Mannevillette, a learned officer and famous hydrographer. With him, Marion made his first surveys and charts. From 1750 to 1769, he worked for the Compagnie des Indes. When the Seven Years' War broke out in May 1756, he was appointed captain of the Compagnie des Indes. In 1761, Marion was given command of the ship Le Comte d'Argenson, to transport a scientific mission to the then French island of Rodrigues, located in the Indian Ocean 500 km north of Mauritius: he led the astronomer Alexandre Guy Pingré there to observe the transit of Venus. During his last exploration, on January 13, 1772, at 46° latitude south, he spotted a land too foggy to distinguish whether it was inhabited. He named it Terre de l'Espérance and ile de la Caverne. (This archipelago of two islands was rediscovered by Cook in 1776, who named them Prince Edward Islands). The flowering horn emerging from the fog on the clock is certainly a reference to this episode. The captain died on June 12, 1772, in the Bay of Islands, New Zealand, in obscure and tragic - even cannibalistic - circumstances, about which much has been written. Marion-Dufresne's diary has never been found. The latest version, attested by a historian and based on the testimony of a descendant* of one of the expedition's sailors, seems to suggest that Marion-Dufresne ventured into taboo waters to fish, and that he and his escort were massacred by the Maoris.