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Lot Essay
This highly sculptural clock comes from Michael Taylor's own collection and was sold in the notable auction of his Estate in 1987. (For another lot from this sale, see lot 289). In 1970 Taylor bought a home in the San Francisco neighborhood of Sea Cliff, now a fashionable enclave which was still undiscovered in those years. His house was described by Architectural Digest Editor-in-Chief Paige Rense as "Ali Baba's cave of treasures" and Taylor himself referred to it as "my design laboratory....a place where I can study forms and effects and combinations". (P. Rowlands, "Design Classics: Michael Taylor, the California Look Creator in San Francisco", Architectural Digest, September 1996.)
Ormolu cartel clocks were admired in Holland and were imitated in giltwood rather than in ormolu, which was not produced in Holland. The present example is related to the large giltwood cartel clock which was supplied to the anteroom of the Felix Meritis society on the Keizersgracht in Amsterdam in 1792. The clock was made by the Amsterdam sculptor Jan Swart (1754 - 1794) after a design by Jacob Otten Husly (1738 - 1796). Swart was paid 107.13 florins and Jan Hendrik Kuhn (1755 -1811), who supplied the movement, received 130 florins. With its heavy laurel swags and bold acanthus carving, this clock recalls the engraved designs in the goût grec by Jean-Charles Delafosse (1734 - 1791) of the 1760s, which were published in 1785 and 1787 in Amsterdam, rather than the refined slender forms of the 1790s. (R.J. Baarsen, Nederlandse Meubelen 1600 - 1800, Rijksmuseum Amsterdam Zwolle, 1993, pp. 138 - 139)
Ormolu cartel clocks were admired in Holland and were imitated in giltwood rather than in ormolu, which was not produced in Holland. The present example is related to the large giltwood cartel clock which was supplied to the anteroom of the Felix Meritis society on the Keizersgracht in Amsterdam in 1792. The clock was made by the Amsterdam sculptor Jan Swart (1754 - 1794) after a design by Jacob Otten Husly (1738 - 1796). Swart was paid 107.13 florins and Jan Hendrik Kuhn (1755 -1811), who supplied the movement, received 130 florins. With its heavy laurel swags and bold acanthus carving, this clock recalls the engraved designs in the goût grec by Jean-Charles Delafosse (1734 - 1791) of the 1760s, which were published in 1785 and 1787 in Amsterdam, rather than the refined slender forms of the 1790s. (R.J. Baarsen, Nederlandse Meubelen 1600 - 1800, Rijksmuseum Amsterdam Zwolle, 1993, pp. 138 - 139)