French Empire mantel clock

This style in architecture, painting, sculpture, and the decorative arts, that had come into its own during the last years of Louis XV's life, chiefly as a reaction to the excesses of the Rococo movement but also partly through the popularity of the excavations at ancient Herculaneum and Pompeii, in Italy.

The timekeepers manufacturing during the Louis XVI and the French First Republic historical periods incorporated this new artistic language with classical designs, allegories, and motifs.

The new factory environment allowed them the opportunity to execute all stages of bronze work including drawing, casting, gilding, assembly, and trade of art objects.

It is necessary to emphasize that unlike the clocks built in the 18th century, where the majority of them were signed, the authorship in many of the Empire ones remain anonymous, making it difficult to attribute one particular work to a certain bronze sculptor.

The total price comprised the work of the different people involved in its manufacturing process: This meant that about 90% of the production costs were the sculpture and the case making.

[3] Although there were a great diversity of case shapes, the most common and popular ones were the clocks with a rectangular or oblong base sustained by four (or more) legs of different forms and patterns.

On top of the base (in the center or to one side) sat the plinth that accommodated the clock dial, however in other models it was also placed in cart wheels, rocks, shields, globes, tree trunks, etc.

These timekeepers were embellished with fine bronze figures of art, sciences, and high ideals allegories, gods, goddesses, muses, cupids, classical literary heroes and other allegorical or mythological compositions.

Sometimes historical personages such as Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, George Washington, Napoleon Bonaparte, philosophers and classical authors, were the main theme as well.

Finally, under the reign of Charles X (1824–1830), the case designs started gradually to develop away from a proportionate and strict classicism towards a baroque style which announced the eclecticism and historicisms in forms, so typical, on the other side, of the rest of the 19th century.

They are works of art as well, sculptural études, where the balance in composition and the study of objects, animals and the human bodies forms and expressions are carefully and meticulously reflected in the bronze figures, achieving a high degree of realism, perfectionism and delicacy.

These timepieces were devised to decorate the console tables or mantelpieces of a given hall or room in palaces, European and American mansions, houses, offices, etc.

Even nowadays a few companies replicate this style, proving that the attention to detail, exquisite taste, superb workmanship, elegance and refinement achieved by the different artists and craftsmen involved in its manufacturing, are everlasting and timeless alike.