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Lot Essay
Peter Hughes, op. cit., in his authoritative entry on the clock of this model in the Wallace Collection, London, has attributed this model to the fondeur Etienne Martincourt (maître in 1762), working to a design by the sculptor Augustin Pajou (1730-1809), as a much larger version of the same model is attributed to Martin and Pajou in the sale of the fondeur Pierre-François Feuchère in Paris in 1824. This larger version, supported on a caryatid stand by the sculptor Jean-Baptiste Stouf, was made for the duchesse de Mazarin but left with its musical box unfinished at her death in 1781.
Only four clocks of this exceptional model are recorded. These comprise:-
- that with white marble base listed in the collection of Sir Richard Wallace in the Grande galerie of 2, rue Lafitte in 1871. Subsequently exhibited in Paris in 1883-4, when the movement was noted as being signed by Courieult (ma/citre in 1767), this is the only recorded clock of this model with a patinated figure of Father Time and a white marble plinth which is not inset with a relief of playful putti. Moreover, when exhibited in 1883-4, it was described as being 65cm. high, 30cm. wide, measurements which correspond extremely closely with this clock, depending upon how the movable scythe is positioned. It is, therefore, almost certainly the clock offered here, whose movement has been replaced,
- that in the Wallace Collection (F264), which has a porphyry plinth and further putto bas-relief panels to the base
-another, also with white marble plinth but with a gilt figure of Father Time, formerly in the collection of Alfred de Rothschild, sold by Lady Carnarvon in these Rooms, 19 May 1925, lot 286
-a final example, with an ebony section in place of the reliefs and also standing on a porphyry plinth, acquired by the Earl of Granard from Wertheimer in 1918.
The clock, with bronze Chronos figure, is designed in the 1770s Roman fashion and celebrates the dominion of Cupid/Love over Chronos/Time ('Le Triomphe de l'Amour sur le Temps'). While the dark figure of Father Time overbears the blue celestial sphere and tramples the fruits of Ceres' cornucopia offered on its cloud-capped 'altar' pedestal, torch-bearing Hymen bears away his 'sablier' hour-glass. Cupid attends with Aurora's garlands and, while his companion disarms Chronos of his destructive scythe, indicates Time himself love's golden dart. Time's hours and minutes are registered on enamel-jewelled medallions that encrust two revolving girdles that are also mosaiced in flowered lozenges evoking Venus's temple in Rome. Peace and Plenty's fruits festoon the pearl-wreathed altar's hollowed corners, while Cupid's attendant Zephyrs puff flower-bringing winds beside a tablet of Roman acanthus fretted in scrolled 'rainceaux' in the 'antique' manner. A poetic Peace trophy, incorporated in the clock's marble step, presents laureled cornucopiae amongst flowered acanthus.
The Chronos figure has been credited to the Rome-trained sculptor Augustin Pajou (d. 1809), Louis XV's 'Sculpteur du Roi' (P.Hughes, op. cit., no.110). The theme of the clock model, inspired like many of Boucher's picturesque compositions by Ovid's, 'Metamorphoses', also relates to Pajou's 'decors d'architecture' such as his 1760s bas-relief symbolising the Element of Air and depicting Hymen and Cupid attending the winter wind Boreus as he lovingly abducts Orythyia (J.D. Draper, Augustin Pajou, New York, 1998, no. 36).
A different clock-model of 'Le Triomphe de l'Amour sur le Temps' was composed using other figures by Pajou that had been introduced on a clock designed in 1775 for the Prince de Conde by the architect Claude Billard de Bellisard (J.D. Draper,ibid., no.78). The former clock's 'altar' displays a 'Sacrifice to Cupid' tablet as featured on 'secretaires' executed by the ébéniste J.-H. Riesener; and the present clock's tablet also appears on one of Riesener's tables (Hughes, ibid, p.498).
Hughes (ibid.) cites only one aparently 19th Century copy that he has come across in his exhaustive research, and this was sold from the G. Ehni sale, Stuttgart, 1 October 1888, lot 706. In his notes at the Wallace Collection, he records that the Stuttgart clock had the positions of the figures af Father Time and the Putti reversed, Father Time instead standing on the left hand side. Its present whereabouts are unknown.
We are extremely grateful to Jeremy Warren Esq., Assistant Director, Head of Collections, Curator of Furniture Sculpture and Metalwork pre-1600 at The Wallace Collection, London, for his help in preparing this catalogue entry.
Only four clocks of this exceptional model are recorded. These comprise:-
- that with white marble base listed in the collection of Sir Richard Wallace in the Grande galerie of 2, rue Lafitte in 1871. Subsequently exhibited in Paris in 1883-4, when the movement was noted as being signed by Courieult (ma/citre in 1767), this is the only recorded clock of this model with a patinated figure of Father Time and a white marble plinth which is not inset with a relief of playful putti. Moreover, when exhibited in 1883-4, it was described as being 65cm. high, 30cm. wide, measurements which correspond extremely closely with this clock, depending upon how the movable scythe is positioned. It is, therefore, almost certainly the clock offered here, whose movement has been replaced,
- that in the Wallace Collection (F264), which has a porphyry plinth and further putto bas-relief panels to the base
-another, also with white marble plinth but with a gilt figure of Father Time, formerly in the collection of Alfred de Rothschild, sold by Lady Carnarvon in these Rooms, 19 May 1925, lot 286
-a final example, with an ebony section in place of the reliefs and also standing on a porphyry plinth, acquired by the Earl of Granard from Wertheimer in 1918.
The clock, with bronze Chronos figure, is designed in the 1770s Roman fashion and celebrates the dominion of Cupid/Love over Chronos/Time ('Le Triomphe de l'Amour sur le Temps'). While the dark figure of Father Time overbears the blue celestial sphere and tramples the fruits of Ceres' cornucopia offered on its cloud-capped 'altar' pedestal, torch-bearing Hymen bears away his 'sablier' hour-glass. Cupid attends with Aurora's garlands and, while his companion disarms Chronos of his destructive scythe, indicates Time himself love's golden dart. Time's hours and minutes are registered on enamel-jewelled medallions that encrust two revolving girdles that are also mosaiced in flowered lozenges evoking Venus's temple in Rome. Peace and Plenty's fruits festoon the pearl-wreathed altar's hollowed corners, while Cupid's attendant Zephyrs puff flower-bringing winds beside a tablet of Roman acanthus fretted in scrolled 'rainceaux' in the 'antique' manner. A poetic Peace trophy, incorporated in the clock's marble step, presents laureled cornucopiae amongst flowered acanthus.
The Chronos figure has been credited to the Rome-trained sculptor Augustin Pajou (d. 1809), Louis XV's 'Sculpteur du Roi' (P.Hughes, op. cit., no.110). The theme of the clock model, inspired like many of Boucher's picturesque compositions by Ovid's, 'Metamorphoses', also relates to Pajou's 'decors d'architecture' such as his 1760s bas-relief symbolising the Element of Air and depicting Hymen and Cupid attending the winter wind Boreus as he lovingly abducts Orythyia (J.D. Draper, Augustin Pajou, New York, 1998, no. 36).
A different clock-model of 'Le Triomphe de l'Amour sur le Temps' was composed using other figures by Pajou that had been introduced on a clock designed in 1775 for the Prince de Conde by the architect Claude Billard de Bellisard (J.D. Draper,ibid., no.78). The former clock's 'altar' displays a 'Sacrifice to Cupid' tablet as featured on 'secretaires' executed by the ébéniste J.-H. Riesener; and the present clock's tablet also appears on one of Riesener's tables (Hughes, ibid, p.498).
Hughes (ibid.) cites only one aparently 19th Century copy that he has come across in his exhaustive research, and this was sold from the G. Ehni sale, Stuttgart, 1 October 1888, lot 706. In his notes at the Wallace Collection, he records that the Stuttgart clock had the positions of the figures af Father Time and the Putti reversed, Father Time instead standing on the left hand side. Its present whereabouts are unknown.
We are extremely grateful to Jeremy Warren Esq., Assistant Director, Head of Collections, Curator of Furniture Sculpture and Metalwork pre-1600 at The Wallace Collection, London, for his help in preparing this catalogue entry.