WORKSHOP OF NICOLAS OR GUILLAUME COUSTOU, FRENCH, CIRCA 1715

This pair of figures originally represented Clothos and Atropos, two of the three sisters designed to adorn Andre-Charles Boulle's La Pendule des Parques - the Clock of the Fates - examples of which can be seen in the Wallace Collection, London, and the Walters Art Museum, Baltimore. Published inventories from Boulle's workshop, tell us that the figures were executed by 'M. Coustou' - either Nicolas Coustou (1658-1732) or his younger brother Guillaume I Coustou (1677-1746), both senior members of the French Academy. The clock was first mentioned in an inventory of 1715, and it is likely that these figures were cast at about that time. Certainly they existed by 1745-49 as they bear the 'crowned c' tax mark for bronzes sold during this four year span. None of the other known examples bear this mark. The occupations of the sisters are indicated by their attributes, Clothos holding the distaff from which she spun the thread of life, and Atropos holding the shears, now missing their blades, to cut it; in the original composition all three of the fates were connected by a single golden strand.