Lot Essay
This golden allegorical mantel clock is conceived in the Louis XVI gout grec fashion of the 1770s. Celebrating sacrifices at love's altar in antiquity, it recalls the pastoral romance of Daphnis and Chloe, attributed to the Greek 4th century sophist Longus. Daphnis, the shepherd son of Mercury, is credited with the invention of bucolic poetry in Arcadia. Here his faithful love, the shepherdess Chloe, whose name signifies 'the verdant or blooming one', makes a libation at Cupid's flower-wreathed altar composed of a truncated column. Its plinth, festooned with the poet's triumphal laurels, stands on reed-gadrooned feet evoking the Arcadian deity Pan.
The model of the nymph is attributed to the sculptor Etienne Maurice Falconet (1716-1791). The movement may have been executed by the Rue Dauphine clock-maker Antoine Henry Voisin, who was a member of the Paris jure from 1773 to 1807, and whose name has been recorded on other fine mantel clocks.
A similar model is illustrated in E. Niehüser, French Bronze Clocks, Atglen, 1999, p. 106, fig. 171. A related clock was sold at Ader, Galerie Charpentier, Paris, 24 March 1955, lot 67. Another clock with a figure of Cupid in place of the sheep is illustrated in H. Ottomeyer P. Pröschel, Vergoldete Bronzen, vol. I, p. 243, ill. 4.6.4.
The model of the nymph is attributed to the sculptor Etienne Maurice Falconet (1716-1791). The movement may have been executed by the Rue Dauphine clock-maker Antoine Henry Voisin, who was a member of the Paris jure from 1773 to 1807, and whose name has been recorded on other fine mantel clocks.
A similar model is illustrated in E. Niehüser, French Bronze Clocks, Atglen, 1999, p. 106, fig. 171. A related clock was sold at Ader, Galerie Charpentier, Paris, 24 March 1955, lot 67. Another clock with a figure of Cupid in place of the sheep is illustrated in H. Ottomeyer P. Pröschel, Vergoldete Bronzen, vol. I, p. 243, ill. 4.6.4.