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French Empire mantel clock

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Patinated and ormolu bronze piece representing Mars and Venus, an allegory of the wedding of Napoleon I and Archduchess Marie Louise of Austria. By the famous bronzier Pierre-Philippe Thomire, ca. 1810.

A French Empire-style mantel clock, is a type of elaborately decorated mantel clock made in France over the Napoleonic Empire between 1804–1814/15, although the clocks manufactured throughout the Bourbon Restoration (1814/1815–1830) are also included within this art movement because they share subject, decorative elements, shapes and style.

Precedents

Already by the end of the 18th century, from the 1780s on, the French mantel clocks participated of a new art movement; the Neoclassicism. The predominant style in architecture, painting, sculpture, and the decorative arts, that had come into its own during the last years of Louis XV’s life, chiefly as a reaction to the excesses of the Rococo but partly through the popularity of the excavations at ancient Herculaneum and Pompeii, in Italy.[1]

Therefore the clocks also did without the excessive ornamentation and overelaborate designs of the preceding Rococo style so typical of the Louis XV reign.

The timekeepers manufactured both over the Louis XVI and the French First Republic period incorporated this new artistic language with classical designs, allegories and motifs. In the case of the Louis XVI pieces, stone (usually white marble, alabaster or biscuit) was combined with gilded and/or patinated bronze, although certain cases were completely cast in bronze. Some models were architectural (i.e., with no figures) while others displayed classical-style figurines.

Subsequently during the Directoire and Consulat times bronze turned progressively into the predominant material employed and so remained throughout the Empire and the Restoration.

Characteristics

Materials and techniques

Sketch for a clock representing an allegory of music, ca. 1805.

In the Empire style timepieces, bronze was the main material used and both the patinated bronze and particularly ormolu techniques were extensively used, reaching its zenith during this age.[2] Indeed, the fine modeling, gilt and patina finishes used in these series-produced pendulum clocks are matchless. Most cases were totally cast in bronze and others combined with a stone base made of marble, alabaster or porphyry. However, wood (mahogany or fruit wood) and carved crystal (the latter used during the Restoration) were (less frequently) employed.

During this period there were between 40 and 60 workshops with founders, gilders, silverers, and chasers in Paris.[3] The founders usually made a wax model from a draft and from this wax model a negative plaster cast was made, which could be reproduced more often. Then using this plaster cast a mould was made, in which the bronze was casted. By combining figures and mountings several versions of one design were produced.

Most gilders did not survive beyond 40 years of age, due to exposure to the harmful mercury fumes caused during the fire-gilding process. So no true ormolu was produced in France after around 1830 as legislation had outlawed the use of mercury (although was still in use around 1960 in very few workshops). Other techniques were used instead, but nothing surpasses the original mercury-firing ormolu method for sheer beauty and richness of colour.[4]

Regarding the mechanism, towards the end of the 18th century, round clock movements became a reliable mass-produced product. Known as “Pendule de Paris“ (Paris, or French, clock movements), they were an 8-day movement with anchor escapement, silk thread suspended pendulum with a count wheel striking on a bell every hour and half hour. By the 1840's the simple and very effective silk suspension was being replaced by various adjustable spring suspension systems.

It is necessary to emphasize that unlike the clocks manufactured in the 18th century where the majority of them were signed, the authorship in many of the Empire ones remain anonymous making it difficult to attribute one particular piece to a certain bronzier. When signed they usually bear the name on the dial and could be the bronzier's name as well as the retailer's name or the movement maker.

Style and design

Ca. 1810-1815 piece presenting George Washington in full military dress. Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The clocks were manufactured following the style then in vogue, the Empire style, a phase of Neoclassicism, based on the classical antiquity art; both the ancient Greece and specially the Roman Empire.[2]

Although there were a great diversity of cases, the most common and popular ones were the clocks with a rectangular or oblong base sustained by four (or more) legs of different forms and designs. The pedestal front was normally decorated with either garlands, acanthus tendrils, acroterions, laurel wreaths, scrolls, flowers and other classical decorative motifs, or depicting finely chased mythological and allegoric scenes in relief as a frieze of a Greek-Roman temple. On top of the base (in the center or to one side) sat the plinth that accommodated the clock dial, however in other models it was also placed in cart wheels, rocks, shields, globes, tree trunks, etc.

These timekeepers were embellished with fine bronze figures of art, sciences, and high ideals allegories, gods, goddesses, muses, cupids, classical literary heroes and other allegorical or mythological compositions. Sometimes historical personages such as Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, George Washington, Napoleon Bonaparte, philosophers and classical authors, were the main theme as well. Hence they are also known as figural or sculptural clocks (rather than architectural).

Likewise, another of the scupltor's source of inspiration for the composition of a certain design were both classical sculptures and celebrated paintings. Examples of the first one include the sleeping ariadne or Psyche revived by cupid's kiss by Antonio Canova and in painting can be quoted the Oath of the Horatii by Jacques-Louis David or the Triumph of Galatea by Rafael.

The classical gods served as models and symbols for the era. For instance, the chariot clocks or “pendules au char” were an exceptional category within the Empire clocks. Apollo, Diana and Cupid depicted as triumphant chariot drivers, were the most popular gods used. It was habitual during the Napoleonic times and particularly under the “Directoire” and “Consulat” regimes that clocks glorify the conduct of warfare.[3]

A 1822 clock depicting the nereid Galatea. The respective allegoric composition in relief of the frieze, represents the “Triumph of Galatea”, based on the homonymous fresco by Rafael Sanzio.

More domestic and romantic subjects, like the "temple of love", gained popularity after the downfall of the Napoleon's Empire. During the Restoration (1815–1830) the representation of warfare scenes was not as common as in the early Empire.

Finally, under the reign of Charles X (1824–1830), the case designs started gradually to develop away from a proportionate and strict classicism towards a baroque style which announced the eclecticism and historicisms in forms, so typical, on the other side, of the rest of the 19th century. That’s why during the second half of that century and early 20th, among all of the different styles of mantel clocks available; Rococo, Louis XVI, etc., exemplaries in the Empire style were revived as well, normally they were replicas based on preexisting models.

Empire clocks in general and the largest and most notable examples in particular from the top bronziers, such as Pierre-Philippe Thomire, Claude Galle, André-Antoine Ravrio, Louis-Stanislas Lenoir-Ravrio, etc., are considered more than just clocks. They are works of art as well, sculptural études, where the balance in composition and the study of objects, animals and the human bodies forms and expressions are carefully and meticulously reflected in the bronze figures, achieving a high degree of realism, perfectionism and delicacy.

These timepieces were devised to decorate the console tables or mantelpieces of palaces, European and American mansions, houses, offices, etc. Today many of them are part of royal collections and can be seen in palaces, official residences, embassies, ministries, museums all over the world, etc.

Even nowadays a few manufacturers replicate these kind of clocks, proving that the attention to detail, taste, elegance and refinement achieved by the different artists and craftsmen involved in its making process, are everlasting and timeless alike.

Bronziers

List of the most renowned bronziers active during the Napoleon and/or the Restoration periods, in alphabetical order:

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Louis XVI style: in Britannica Online Encyclopedia
  2. ^ a b Pier Van Leeuwen, Empire mantel clocks: A golden dream in timekeepers (2003): in the Museum of the Dutch Clock website
  3. ^ a b Pier Van Leeuwen, Empire-style mantel clocks: A golden dream in timepieces (2003): p. 2 exhibition catalogue
  4. ^ Ormolu, definition and origins: in Antiqueinstruments
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