Mantel Clock

With its dynamic movement and highly finished modelling, it almost seems as though this clock was intended more as a sculptural grouping than a functional timepiece but it is a successful combination of both. The figures represent Love Triumphing over Time, a popular theme for eighteenth-century French clock cases. In a superbly balanced composition, the figure of Father Time is finished in patinated bronze while the winged infants, including Love, have been gilded, reinforcing the visual impact of their triumph. The horizontal dials of the clock are mounted on the blue-enamelled celestial globe, similar to the way in which the equator marks the circumference of the earth. The figure of Love (or infant Cupid) sits on the plinth under the globe, his quiver half hidden beneath his leg, the arrow in his left hand indicating the time on the revolving dials. He holds one end of the gilt-bronze garland of roses which encircles Time, while the infant above him has stolen Time’s hour-glass and a third has seized the end of Time’s scythe. Their triumph is complete. Martincourt collaborated on several clocks with J.-A. Lepaute, one of the most fashionable clock makers in Paris, including at least two of a very similar theme to this - one in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, inv. no. 17.190.2126, and a much larger one which was made for the duchesse de Mazarin, the figures modelled by the sculptor Augustin Pajou. However, the figures here do not suggest Pajou’s involvement and it is possible that Martincourt himself was the modeller, as well as being responsible for the chasing and gilding. In addition to being a master bronze worker, Martincourt was a sculptor, and a member of the Académie de Saint-Luc; he advertised himself as a ‘modeller for chasers’. He is known to have worked closely with Riesener, for whom he modelled mounts for furniture. Two of these – the rectangular plaque of the winged infants playing music in the clouds and the elongated stylised acanthus mounts – are also found on this clock, on the front and back of the plinth, reinforcing the attribution to Martincourt. Although the movement is not signed, it is possible that this clock was also a collaboration between Lepaute and Martincourt. It was attributed to Lepaute in 1860. The 4th Marquess of Hertford acquired the clock, probably in 1860 from the sale of his half-brother, Lord Henry Seymour, when he recorded that the price achieved at auction was 5,600 francs and that ‘tout le monde en voulait’ (‘everyone wanted it’). Hertford clearly admired the model, as he owned another version with a movement by Courieult on a white marble base. This second model did not have the plaques of winged infants on the plinth.