.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
A ROYAL NEOCLASSICAL MASTERPIECE
Essay by Roger Smith
THE SALE
On 18 February 1811, the King's Clockmaker Benjamin Vulliamy (1747-1811) delivered to George, Prince of Wales (1762-1830), newly appointed Prince Regent and later King George IV, a spring clock signed Vulliamy No. 202. [1] The clock was described as having a "very large magnificent Temple case ... supported on four columns ... with a biscuit figure sacrificing in the Temple", and cost 250 guineas (or £262-10s). That was extremely expensive, even for this leading London firm, but was justified in the record of sale by the fact that the materials used and the care taken in their finishing were exceptional. The marble was described as of "the finest quality and particularly white", while the chasing was said to be "executed in the most spirited and finished manner", and the gilding was "as strong and of as fine a colour as possible." The whole was fixed on a crimson velvet stand and covered with a very large 3-piece glass shade - a necessary precaution for ornamental clocks displayed in houses warmed by open fires. It should be added that the price may also have reflected the fact that while the prince could be generous to his friends, as the clock's subsequent history showed, he was notoriously slow to pay his suppliers.
THE DESIGN
Vulliamy No. 202 belongs to an important series of sculptural clocks featuring large Classical figures in Derby biscuit porcelain that were produced in London by the Anglo-Swiss firm of Vulliamy & Son in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. These clocks have been extensively discussed elsewhere, and it need only be noted here that they were first created in the 1780s in a deliberate attempt to challenge the predominance of imported French ornamental clocks in the houses of wealthy and fashionable Britons. [2] Thanks to Benjamin Vulliamy's personal talents as a designer and his ability to select and get the best performance from a network of independent artists, suppliers and craftspeople, his project proved to be very successful. The fact that this success continued for many years was due in part to the open warfare which continued between France and Britain for much of this period, but also owed much to Vulliamy's alertness to the changing tastes of his wealthy customers who, paradoxically in view of the political hostility, remained sensitive to changes in fashionable taste originating in Paris.
The case of No. 202 is in the form of a semi-circular Classical Temple, and derives from the veneered and painted wood case of an earlier Vulliamy clock containing a Derby biscuit porcelain figure of Time clipping the wings of Love, unfinished in 1785 but seen in Vulliamy's shop in Pall Mall by the German traveller Sophie von La Roche in 1786. She noted that it had been made for the Prince of Wales and it is still in the Royal Collection, supported by a painted satinwood pedestal of typical Vulliamy form. [3] Vulliamy subsequently copied the Temple design of that clock in marble and in two sizes. The smaller version was made to hold a Derby biscuit figure of Euterpe, the Greek Muse of music, playing a flute, and several examples were made, including what may have been the first, sold to Queen Charlotte around 1789 and originally in the Queen's dressing room in Buckingham House (later Palace). [4] It is still in the Royal Collection but its original balance-controlled movement (or 'watch') was replaced in 1845 with a normal clock movement (No. 1694) by Queen Victoria's Clockmaker, Benjamin Lewis Vulliamy (1780-1854). These small marble Temple clocks were sold by Vulliamy for about 48 guineas (£50-8s), a price in line with his usual ornamental clocks.
Although of a similar pattern, the large version of the marble Temple case represented by No. 202 was much more expensive and much rarer. In fact, the only similar Vulliamy clock known is No. 635 in black marble, probably sold to Lord Yarborough around 1817 and still in the family's possession. The greater size of this version and certain details like the pedestals to the columns make it closer to the design of the wooden original than the smaller type. The serial number of No. 202 and the style of its movement, dial and hands suggest that it was started in the late 1780s, but it was presumably then put aside, waiting for an order from a sufficiently wealthy customer. This did not happen for some twenty years, and consequently the Temple case in its present form provides evidence of Vulliamy's willingness to adapt his designs to the changing tastes of his customers. This meant moving from the neo-Greek 'simplicity' of his earlier sculptural clocks to the more full-blooded Roman 'Empire' style that later developed in Napoleonic France. On No. 202, the vase surmount seen on the wooden cased clock and the smaller marble Temples was replaced by a gilt Roman eagle, and a pair of naturalistic lions were added as supporters. These elements date stylistically from the early years of the nineteenth century, and in fact the lions are of a rare pattern attributable to the sculptor James Smith (1775-1815) that was probably not available until shortly before the clock's sale in 1811. [5]
Because the clock was started some 20 years earlier, there is unfortunately no surviving record of its manufacture. However, the limited number of trusted suppliers and outworkers that Vulliamy continued to employ over many years makes it very likely that the marble case was made by J. Day of Brewers Row, Westminster, while the movement maker was probably James Bullock of Furnivals Inn Court, Holborn. (Both had been involved with the small temple clock No. 312 sold in 1800.) There is firm evidence about the design and production of the large biscuit porcelain figure in classical dress which forms the central element of Vulliamy's design. Letters to the Derby factory's owner William Duesbury from his London agent in 1788 show that Vulliamy copied the figure from a book in his library and supplied a drawing to the sculptor Charles Rossi (1762-1839), who made the model. There was then a delay until March 1790 when the London mould-maker Anthony Sartine was commissioned to produce a mould of this figure and a companion figure of Aesculapius for the factory. Although the female sacrifice figure was not named in these letters, it is very similar to an engraving of Hygeia, the Greek goddess of health, in the Abbé de Saint-Non's Receuil de Griffonis (etc.) (1763), which is known to have been in Vulliamy's library. [6]
THE LATER HISTORY
On receiving the clock on 18 February 1811, the Prince Regent immediately gave it to Lady Melbourne (1751-1818). The recipient of this very generous gift, born Elizabeth Milbanke, was the wife of a long-term member of the prince's circle and a close friend of the prince in her own right. [7] The clock was evidently destined for the Melbournes' London house in Whitehall, rather than one of their country houses, since it re-appears in the Vulliamy records in June 1814 as being cleaned for Lord Melbourne under a yearly maintenance contract. [8] Thereafter, the clock's history is unknown until it reappeared in the London art market in the later twentieth century.