Lot Essay
This 'Argus' clock, inspired by Homer's Odyssey and emblematic of Fidelity, has its movement incorporated in a Grecian altar, providing a kennel for the ancient hound. Argus here recognises his master Ulysses, who returned to Ithica in the disguise of a beggar. Its marble plinth is embellished with laurel-wreathed medallions of lance-bearing owls, symbolising Minerva, and accompanying a bas-relief tablet of the hero's welcome home from the Trojan wars by his wife Penelope.