THE PROPERTY OF A GENTLEMAN
AN EMPIRE ORMOLU MANTEL CLOCK, the case decorated with a triumphant hero and his hound with a couple seated opposite, the rectangular clock case surmounted by a plumed general's helmet and decorated with military trophies, the dial centred by anthemia and with bronzed roman chapters, inscribed VI CHOISELAT GALLIEN FOUANT DE BRONZES DU GDE MEUBLE, the twin-train movement signed on the back plate Lesieur and with count-wheel strike on a bell, the rectangular base decorated to the front with a frieze depicting a chariot and heros in a landscape, on a rectangular plinth with acanthus and dart moulded edge, on winged claw feet

Details
AN EMPIRE ORMOLU MANTEL CLOCK, the case decorated with a triumphant hero and his hound with a couple seated opposite, the rectangular clock case surmounted by a plumed general's helmet and decorated with military trophies, the dial centred by anthemia and with bronzed roman chapters, inscribed VI CHOISELAT GALLIEN FOUANT DE BRONZES DU GDE MEUBLE, the twin-train movement signed on the back plate Lesieur and with count-wheel strike on a bell, the rectangular base decorated to the front with a frieze depicting a chariot and heros in a landscape, on a rectangular plinth with acanthus and dart moulded edge, on winged claw feet
25¼in. (64cm.) wide; 27in. (68.5cm.) high; 9½in. (24.3cm.) deep

Lot Essay

Lesieur à Paris, flourished in Vieille rue du Temple in 1806

The figurative clock is designed in the early 19th Century antique manner after a painting of 1802 by Baron Pierre-Narcisse Guérin (d. 1833), now in the Musée du Louvre. This painting was engraved by C. Normand following its exhibition in the Paris salon of 1802 (see A. Gonzalez-Palacios, 'Le Vendite Demidoff E Ruspoli Talleyrand', Arte Illustrata, 17/18, 1969, p. 129, fig. 29. It recalls how Time reveals Truth and a story concerning Venus inspired by Virgil's Aeneid, and recounted in Jean Racine's, Phèdre. Hippolytus, a devotee of Diana, stands bedside a hero's altar, which incorporates the clock-face framed by an armorial trophy. He protests his innocence before his father Theseus against a charge levelled by his stepmother Phaedra. The plinth's bas-relief tablet reveals his death, caused by Neptune's unjust punishment.

Guérin's painting, together with a clock of identical model, is illustrated in H. Ottomeyer, P. Proschel et al., Vergoldete Bronzen, Munich, 1986, vol. 1, p. 370, figs. 5.13.13 and 5.13.15. Further clocks of this model were sold by the Hon. Richard Acton in these Rooms, 2 July 1981, lot 35 and anonymously in these Rooms, 11 December 1980, lot 41

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