Louis Phillippe Bronze Clock, France, c 1830-1840

Pedestal Louis XVI style. Mahogany with gilded bronze mounting in the form of swans on the apron under the plate. Two legs in mahogany, top with gilded bronze heads. On each side...

A charming mahogany tobacco box in an architecturally intriguing form. The top of the lid is adorned with a small knob of bone. Great quality and craftsmanship. Empire. Denmark, ...

French ormolu mantel clock standing on a stepped base and resting on turned, chased feet with acanthus leaf decoration below a finely chased...

Ormulu pendule with depiction of friendship and love Paris (Lepaute, Thomire) fire-gilt bronze Empire around 1815 Dimensions: H x W x D: 44 x 36 x 13 cm French pendulum movement with eight days duration. Thread suspension and lock disc striking movement with strike on bell on the half and full hour. White enamel dial with Roman hour numerals and Breguet hands. Signature: LePaute & Fils / Hrl. du Roi (Pierre-Basile Lepaute (1750 - 1843) with his son Pierre-Michel Lepaute (1785-1849); from 1811 in joint workshop). Description: The extremely high quality pendulum shown here takes up a profound theme: Friendship, which combines with love and can thereby outlast time and death. As it is typical for the epoch of classicism, personifications and symbols are taken from the fund of ancient mythology and art and then developed further. The main figure is a young woman in an antique, girded garment, standing barefoot and with crossed legs next to an altar, on which she is leaning with her left elbow. She gracefully bows her head towards a tempestuously approaching Cupid, grasps his right hand with her left and draws him to her bosom, the seat of the heart. The delicate ambivalence of flying towards and being held culminates in the trustingly intimate look that the two cast at each other. The young woman personifies friendship, the winged Cupid love. As a sign of their intimate connection, two burning hearts appear on the altar next to the two, framed by the puffed scarf, which are closely bound together by a chain of flowers. Next to them, on the altar slab, one can see an erected book with the title "Amitie" (French: amitie, friendship). Supporting the book is a pomegranate held by a ring of pomegranate flowers. The bursting seeds spill out of the cracked skin. Since ancient times, the pomegranate and its blossoms have been dedicated to the goddess Persephone, symbolizing the underworld and death, but also life and fertility. The myrtle interwoven in the pomegranate flower wreath of "friendship" also has a far-reaching symbolic power: the plant was dedicated to the goddess Aphrodite, stands for virginity, and was and is therefore obligatory in the bridal wreath...