MARK OF ANDREAS VON ZADORA-GERLOF, 1996

AMERICA'S FABERGÉ
Master glyptographer Andreas von Zadora-Gerlof (b. 1957) was raised on a farm on the Queen Charlotte Islands near Vancouver. His first exposure to precious carved hardstones was through the handful of Fabergé objects, including a silver and ruby toad on a malachite base and a rock crystal vase of lily of the valley, which had come with his aristocratic parents when they emigrated from Pomerania following World War II. His interest in carving however developed as a result of two separate adolescent hunting accidents that injured his right hand and later his right arm. After a series of unsuccessful rounds of physiotherapy, a family friend suggested the practice of engraving silver might help to regenerate the injured tendons. This unconventional therapy proved successful and Zadora-Gerlof then moved on to totem carving, through which he learned to envision positive and negative spaces. Branching into the glyptic arts, he studied at the Gem City College School of Horology and Jewelry in Quincy, Il and later in Idar-Oberstein, Germany.
Zadora-Gerlof’s opened his first studio in San Francisco, which was followed by a series of shows in Los Angeles, New York, Southampton and Paris. In addition to producing works under his own name he has also provided sculpted elements for Verdura and Boucheron jewelry. In order to keep up with the demands of his patrons, Zadora-Gerlof has expanded his workshop to include workmasters based throughout the United States specializing in goldsmithing, engraving, lapidary arts, clock making and enameling. Works by Zadora are a true collaboration of some of America’s finest craftsmen who are able to give life to the imaginative creatures dreamed by Zadora-Gerlof (Zapata, Janet, The Art of Zadora America’s Fabergé, New York, 1999 pp. 9-35).
AN ODE TO JOY
Zadora-Gerlof’s Delacorte Clock represents one of his most ambitious and most costly commissions. Following his highly successful 1992 show at the Forbes Magazine Galleries in New York, he became connected with the matriarch of a family well-known within the pharmaceutical industry. In 1996 she commissioned from Zadora-Gerlof a series of four large musical clocks for herself and her three children (Foulkes, Nicholas, Zadora Timepieces Haute Horologerie, New York, 2007, pp. 12-13). Based on the beloved Delacorte Clock located within the zoo in Central Park, the four clocks each feature delicately carved vases of flowers and six animal musicians that circle a hardstone clock tower to Beethoven’s Ode to Joy on the hour. The clock tower is topped by a pair of monkeys with hammers, striking a bell to mark the hour. Although identical in overall design, the four clocks are executed in various combinations of hardstones and gems, with clock towers carved from Wyoming jadite, banded South African chalcedony, lapis lazuli and pink rhodochrosite.
To create the Delacorte Clocks, Zadora-Gerlof studied the original plans and archival photographs of the Central Park clock housed within the New York City Hall of Records. Plaster maquettes were then made of the clock tower and each animal musician to ensure there were minimal modifications between Zadora-Gerlof’s inspiration and his glyptic realization. The inlaid wood tower is intended to evoke the masonry archway on which the Central Park clock is raised (Zapata, 1999, pp. 35, 38, 40-43). Within the four arched niches are a rampant goat and bear and two rock crystal vases of lily of the valley, perhaps inspired by the wildlife of Zadora-Gerlof’s childhood in Canada and the Fabergé heirloom his parents brought with them from Pomerania..
“A KIND OF SLENDER SANTA CLAUS”
Perched above a three-story arcade within the Central Park Wildlife Conservation Center, the Delcorte Clock has delighted generations of children and adults. Donated by philanthropist and publisher George T. Delacorte (1894-1991), the clock is considered one of Central Park’s most beloved monuments. Born in Brooklyn, Delacorte graduated from Columbia University and founded Dell Publishing Co. in 1921.
Delacorte wanted his philanthropy to be tangible, beautiful and dramatic. In 1964 he established the charitable foundation Make New York City Beautiful Inc. to “promote interest and aid in the donation of permanent improvements to the City of New York for its cultural advancement and beautification.” For his contribution to the beautification of the City, Mayor Edward Koch declared: “George T. Delacorte is to the City of New York what Lorenzo de Medici was to the City of Florence.”
Described by the New York Times as “a kind of slender Santa Claus,” Delacorte is responsible for a number of well-loved New York landmarks, including fountains at City Hall, Bowling Green and Columbus Circle. In addition to the clock in the zoo, Delacorte’s other major contributions to Central Park include the donation of the Delacorte Theater (1962) and the sculptures of Romeo and Juliet and The Tempest. In 1959, he donated the bronze statue of Alice in Wonderland near the Conservatory Pond as a memorial to his first wife, who had enjoyed reading the story to their children (www.nycommunitytrust.org).
A BELOVED NEW YORK MONUMENT
Inspired by the monuments and musical amusements seen on his travels, Delacorte conceived of the clock in the Central Park Zoo as an interpretation the belfries of European churches and civic buildings. He commissioned Italian sculptor Andrea Spadini to create the figures of the six brass animal musicians, who spin and dance on an axis every half hour to glockenspiel-style nursery music, as well as the two monkeys who strike a bell with hammers to note the hour. The arcade was designed by artist Fernando Taxidor in collaboration with architect Edward Coe Embury, (son of the Zoo’s original architect, Aumar Embury III) to link the Monkey House and the Zoo quadrangle. The height of the arcade allows for the clock to be seen by adults and for small children to watch the animals dance.The Delacorte Clock was unveiled on 24 June 1965 to a large crowd of spectators and city dignitaries, with two of Delacorte’s grandchildren pulling the ropes to release the clock’s fabric shroud.