Jean-André Lepaute

Jean-André Lepaute (23 November 1720 – 11 April 1789), together with his younger brother Jean-Baptiste Lepaute (6 February 1727 – 18 March 1802),[1] was a founder of an outstanding French clockmaker dynasty of their day, holding the brevet horlogers du Roi.

His brother assumed his workshop in 1774, when Jean-André retired; he died after a long illness at Paris.

Born at Thonne-la-Long in Lorraine, Lepaute arrived in Paris as a young man.

He constructed refinements to the clockwork in which the gears are all in the horizontal plane, making possible the revolving dials of clocks in urns (illustration, right) or in globes characteristic of the classicizing Louis XVI style.

His nephew was the clockmaker, mathematician and astronomer Joseph Lepaute Dagelet who accompanied Lapérouse on his fateful scientific navigation.

The clock at the École militaire , Paris,
Urn clock, Walters Art Museum