A rare late 19th century French automata combination battleship timepieceattributed to Guilmet, Parismodelled on an iron-clad warship with pointed prow, four anchors on chain, and a silvered central section containing ten protruding cannons, and a continuously rotating propeller to the stern; the deck set with twin flags and two rotating gun-turrets, each with a further pair of cannon, the first turret set with an aneroid barometer (the weather forecasts in Italian), the second with a timepiece with silvered Roman dial and blued steel hands wound through the dial, a pair of silvered funnels are set to the middle, each with a thermometer scale (glass tubes now lacking). The automata movement to drive the gun turrets and the ship's screw sits within the hull, the winding square ingeniously hidden by a removable brass port hole. Raised on a pair of shaped silvered brackets. 29cms (11ins) wide.Footnotes:A near identical model by Guilmet is illustrated in Roberts, D. (1999) Mystery, Novelty & Fantasy Clocks. Pennsylvania: Schiffer Publishing, Fig. 22-5.This lot is subject to the following lot symbols: ** VAT on imported items at a preferential rate of 5% on Hammer Price and the prevailing rate on Buyer's Premium.