Mantel Clock in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, January 2008

Mantel Clock
case: gilded bronze and marble
dial: gilded bronze and white enamel
movement: brass and steel
French (Paris), last quarter of the 18th century

Accession # 66.28.2

By the middle of the eighteenth century, French clockcases were often related to sculpture and to the smaller decorative arts of the period. This clock, with a sculptural group called the Toilette of Venus, depicts the goddess seated at a circular table and attended by a handmaiden, who can probably be identified as Flora. Cupid reclines at the foot of the table and points to the time, which appears on the revolving chapter rings that are set within the side of the table. The model for this small sculptural group has long been attributed to Etienne-Maurice Falconet (1716-1791) on the basis of the resemblance of the attending figure to Falconet's marble Bather of 1757. The Bather was modeled in miniature and produced in biscuit porcelain by the Sevres Manufactory, where a number of other porcelains were made from models supplied by Falconet. Falconet also made models of playful infants as ornaments for silver services by Francois-Thomas Germain (1726-1791) and for at least one clock depicting the Three Graces, but there is no direct evidence that he modeled the figures on this clock. The revolving dials for hours and minutes are driven by a long arbor that is connected to the hour- and the half-hour striking movement in the marble base of the clock. Clocks with revolving dials of this sort were a specialty of the Parisian workshop of the Lepaute family, and one of the most spectacular examples is exhibited in the Museum's West Gould Gallery.

Text from the Metropolitan Museum of Art label.