Bronze Mantel Clock, 19th Century

Wall clock. Gilt bronze. France, 19th century. Gilt bronze wall clock of the type known as a "cartel" due to its shape, featuring Parisian movement and a white dial with Roman numer...

Garnish with clock and candelabra in porcelain and gilt bronze. France, 19th century. Mechanism in perfect working order. Fireplace garnish composed of a clock and two five-light candelabras, all three pieces made by combining gilt bronze, with relief elements and round bulges and cold-chiseled details, and porcelain decorated with low-temperature enamels, including gold enamel. The porcelain pieces follow models from the Sèvres National Manufacture of the 18th century, with large pictorial cartouches on a cobalt blue background adorned with golden plant motifs. The set follows a historicist design that combines baroque and neoclassical elements with enamelled scenes of Rococo inspiration, representing landscapes and scenes with mythological themes alluding to the arts and the goddess Venus. The clockwork is stamped “Chles. MT”, with serial number 17420. The main glazed porcelain plates are signed DP Boncher. The clock follows an architectural structure, with an oval base with a prominent front in plan, raised on four molded feet in the shape of a top, on which a large ornamental vase is placed. This plinth has a distinct pinto and, above it, a main body as a façade, with a circular pediment that houses the clock face. This includes black enamelled Roman numerals on white medallions with a gold border, arranged around the central representation of a putti reclining among clouds, holding a floral garland and accompanied by musical instruments. Among the medallions that house the numbers, a small jeweled decoration that evokes pearls and embedded rubies, which is echoed in the secondary areas of the body of the piece and also the vase, always combined with delicate golden filigrees. On both sides of the sphere are two female portraits of ladies from the 18th century, in oval frames. Below, a classically inspired scene with a muse holding musical instruments, probably Euterpe or Erató, accompanied by a putti reading a sheet of music. On the sides of the clock body, two large curved rectangular plates house highly pictorial enameled landscapes, worked with the same miniaturist precision as the rest of the enameled cartouches. These are landscapes of romantic heritage, again inspired by the 18th century, with ideal settings for a twilight atmosphere, featuring classical ruins. The vase that tops the body of the clock has a hemispherical tank, shoulders ending in an edge, an openwork truncated conical neck, which opens smoothly towards the shoulders, and a domed lid, also openwork. The handles are figurative, in bronze, with two female sisters crowned with flowers, of clear Greco-Latin inspiration, worked in a round shape. In the tank, the vase houses two enameled porcelain cartouches, the front one with two putti and a dove - a symbolic allusion to Venus - and the back one with musical instruments. The design of the clock is completed by two thick bronze S-shaped plant braces, under the vase, and counter moldings and plant motifs cast in relief and cold chiseled, combining matte and polished finishes. The candelabras follow a similar design, with large vases of neoclassical design on pedestals, in this case cylindrical, raised on four low feet of turned design. The bases house porcelain cartouches with scenes of putti related to the arts; In one of them we see two putti practicing painting, and in the other two others in a scene related to classical lyric poetry, with one putto writing while the other, holding a lyre, raises a laurel wreath above his head. The cartouches that occupy the front of the candelabra vases...

The style Henry II ("Henri II") was the name given to an artistic style emerged in France in the 19th century and was inspired by the Renaissance of this country making a series of f...

Clock garnish and two candlesticks. Bronze, rouge griotte marble. France, 19th century, following Clodion's models. Set or garnish consisting of a table clock and two candlesticks ...