BRONZE CLOCK WITH MUSE. FRANCE, 19TH CENTURY.

Table clock with Muse and writers. Blued and gilded bronze, Paris machinery. France, 19th century. Machinery in perfect working order.
Blued and gilded bronze table clock with Paris machinery, and a white dial with a gilded bronze center (Roman numbering for the hours, lines for the minutes and Breguet-type hands). The rectangular pedestal stands on supports and has architectural decoration; The base of the clock, also rectangular, shows vegetal crowns with scrolls highlighting cartouches (with names: Virgile, Tasse, Homere, Racine, Voltaire); The sphere and the machinery are housed in a piece of gilded bronze that resembles a bookshelf, on which appear books, a laurel wreath and a musical instrument. A blued bronze female figure, dressed in a tunic, holds this kithara, a plucked string instrument typical of ancient Greece, similar to the lyre (the difference is the soundboard, so it could be a lyre at present).
The female figure would be a Muse: these classic divinities from Greek mythology inspired the arts; daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne, companions of the god Apollo in his retinue, each one is related to a branch of art and knowledge. It is linked to the lyre Calliope (muse of eloquence, beauty and epic poetry) and with the zither Erató (muse of lyrical-love poetry).
As for the names mentioned, the first refers to Publius Virgil Marón (70 BC-19 BC), Roman poet, author of the Aeneid, the Georgics, etc. He was also known for his role as a guide in Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy. Torquato Tasso (1544-1595), Italian poet and author of Jerusalem Liberated, Rinaldo, etc., is known as “Le Tasse” in French. Homer is the name given to the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, foundations of Greco-Latin epic literature. Racine is the surname, among others, of the French playwright Jean Racine (1639-1699) and his son and poet Louis Racine (1692-1763). François-Marie Arouet (Paris, 1694-1778), better known as Voltaire, was a French writer, historian, philosopher and lawyer, with numerous literary and philosophical writings.
Curiously, there is knowledge of an Empire clock (located in a private French collection) in the shape of a library with books, very similar to the one in the present piece. And it is necessary to remember that the high specialization of French bronzesmiths, which gave rise to works of art of great quality, meant that several pieces of the same model were created if it was liked by the aristocracy and the upper class. For this reason, there is evidence of several watches, with slight differences compared to the present one (especially in the dial and the absence of blued bronze), preserved in private collections and dated to the beginning of the 19th century.
Weight: 12.7 kg."


· Size: 40x15x57 cms.