Clock

Designed to grace the mantelpiece of a prosperous bourgeois Viennese home, this clock declares its Jewish identity robustly. The dial bears a Star of David; the hours are marked with the Hebrew letters that correspond to numerals, and the whole is crowned with the Tablets of the Law. In style, the clock has the elegant, simple lines of the Biedermeier era in Vienna (1815–48), a period characterized by an embrace of family, order, and tradition.