An Austrian giltwood and cream painted striking mantel clock

LATE 18TH CENTURY

Details

An Austrian giltwood and cream painted striking mantel clock
Late 18th Century
The drum-shaped case supported on the back of a figure leaning on crutches, led by a ragged child, surmounted with the figure of a further child holding a cauldron in one hand and trailing a satchel in the other, the naturalistic semi-circular base carved with a tree and foliage and with stylized stiff-leaf borders, the white enamel Arabic dial with outside minutes, pierced gilt-metal entwined scroll and arrow hands, the twin-going barrel movement with silk suspended pendulum and strike on a bell
51cm. high x 35cm. wide x 17cm. deep

Lot Essay

This clock, with oval plinth wreathed with a ribbon-guilloche in the Louis XVI manner, is carved with Bohemian entertainers that symbolise hope for the future and derives from the celebrated engravings issued around 1620 by Jacques Callot (d.1635). The clock provides a perch for a baggar, who is accompanied by his travelling companion and proceded by a 'guard'. The beggar with crutches features as the frontispiece to the 'Varie Figure Gobbi' executed in Florence in 1616 and published in Nancy; while the 'Capitoni de Baroni', derived from the frontispiece of 'Les Gueux' (J.Lieure, Jacques Callot, Paris, 1927, p.)

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