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拍品专文
The hour and minute rings within the sphere on the present lot may well have originally rotated and been driven by a timepiece. The interior of the sphere has provision for a drive shaft running through the centre of the tripod. The base could in theory have stood on a futher base housing a clock movement with indirect gearing to the drive shaft for the rings rotating around the sphere.
The pedestal of this mechanical clock - signed 'Sigisbert. M. 1755' - must be the work of either Sigisbert-Martial Michel (b.1727) or Sigisbert-François Michel (1728-1811). Both men were sculptors working in the same style and in the same workshop, so it is often difficult to distinguish their creations. The brothers were from a highly distinguished family of sculptors: their uncles had produced work for the gardens of Versailles, and their youngest brother was the famous Claude Michel, better known as Clodion.
Interestingly, this exact same pedestal design was re-used by the English bronzier Matthew Boulton on perfume-burners, including those sold to Robert Child (d.1782) in Boulton and Fothergill's sale at Christie's in April 1772. These were subsequently sold by Viscount Villiers, Christie's London, 17 November 1994, lot 26.
THE ORNAMENT
These pedestals, hung with Bacchic ram-heads, are embellished with figurative bas-reliefs of a Dionysiac/bacchic festival in the manner of an antique marble altar. The bacchic panther accompanies the wine-god Silenus with his thyrsus and liknos (basket), while a trumpet-blowing faun, like that on the antique Borghese vase, announces the unveiling of a wine-krater and a companion nymph dances by a thyrsus and wine-patera.
The pedestal of this mechanical clock - signed 'Sigisbert. M. 1755' - must be the work of either Sigisbert-Martial Michel (b.1727) or Sigisbert-François Michel (1728-1811). Both men were sculptors working in the same style and in the same workshop, so it is often difficult to distinguish their creations. The brothers were from a highly distinguished family of sculptors: their uncles had produced work for the gardens of Versailles, and their youngest brother was the famous Claude Michel, better known as Clodion.
Interestingly, this exact same pedestal design was re-used by the English bronzier Matthew Boulton on perfume-burners, including those sold to Robert Child (d.1782) in Boulton and Fothergill's sale at Christie's in April 1772. These were subsequently sold by Viscount Villiers, Christie's London, 17 November 1994, lot 26.
THE ORNAMENT
These pedestals, hung with Bacchic ram-heads, are embellished with figurative bas-reliefs of a Dionysiac/bacchic festival in the manner of an antique marble altar. The bacchic panther accompanies the wine-god Silenus with his thyrsus and liknos (basket), while a trumpet-blowing faun, like that on the antique Borghese vase, announces the unveiling of a wine-krater and a companion nymph dances by a thyrsus and wine-patera.