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
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