A LOUIS XV ORMOLU AND BRONZE MANTEL CLOCK depicting Europa and the Bull, the circular glazed enamelled dial with both Roman and Arabic numerals within a rockwork and trailing-foliate C-scroll frame resting upon a standing bull and surmounted by a seated figure of Europa holding a flower garland, the naturalistically-cast plinth with two further nymphs crowning the Bull with garlanded flowers and decorated with C-scrolls and foliate volutes, the movement signed No. 2040 J. Baptiste Baillon A PARIS

细节
A LOUIS XV ORMOLU AND BRONZE MANTEL CLOCK depicting Europa and the Bull, the circular glazed enamelled dial with both Roman and Arabic numerals within a rockwork and trailing-foliate C-scroll frame resting upon a standing bull and surmounted by a seated figure of Europa holding a flower garland, the naturalistically-cast plinth with two further nymphs crowning the Bull with garlanded flowers and decorated with C-scrolls and foliate volutes, the movement signed No. 2040 J. Baptiste Baillon A PARIS
18¼in. (46.5cm.) wide; 21¼in. (54cm.) high

拍品专文

Jean-Baptiste-Albert Baillon, fils de maître in 1727.

This celebrated model is displayed in several public collections; one of exactly the same model by Robert Osmond is exhibited in the Aschaffenburg Schloss and illustrated in H. Ottomeyer , P. Pröschel et al.,, Vergoldete Bronzen, Munich, 1986, vol. 1, p. 125, fig. 2.8.7, while related models with slight variants in the foliage and form from the Louvre and the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge are illustrated in H. Ottomeyer, P. Pröschel et al., op. cit, vol. I, p. 125, figs. 2.8.8 and 2.8.9.

A closely related clock, sold anonymously in these Rooms, 5 July 1973, lot 31 and now in the J. Paul Getty Museum, Malibu, California, (Accession number 73.DB.85), is illustrated and discussed in A. Sassoon and G. Wilson, Decorative Arts, A Handbook of the Collections of the J. Paul Getty Museum, Malibu, 1986, p. 41, fig. 88.

Two mantel clocks of related model, one signed St. Germain were offered Christie's Monaco, 16 June 1990, lots 218 and 167.

The clock, designed in the Louis XV picturesque manner, celebrates the Triumph of Love and derives from Ovid's Metamorphoses concerning plants, animals and the pagan gods ability to commune with mortals. Jupiter, the father of the gods, is represented as the loving abductor, who, seeing the nymph Europa gathering flowers by the shore, adopted the guise of a bull to carry her away to the consternation of her companions