Clock with Chinese scene
Applied Arts
Inventory number
2020.10.21.3.AA.DC.C1830.FRDescription
Bronze clock, called a mantel clock, composed of a rectangular base ornamented with a scene representing 4 people carried on a boat in a Far East landscape. The clock face is housed in a table on which a Western woman dressed in Chinese clothes is serving tea.Subject clocks became very popular mainly through the new bourgeois clientele after the period of the First Empire in France. On the Romantic period clocks, the sources of inspirations are various and mostly exotic, such as black populations, Chinese or Turks, are particularly appreciated by amateurs. These motifs testify the taste of that time for distant countries which never cease to ignite the imaginations of artists in search of mystery and exoticism. The Chinese taste, which had appeared in the 18th century, went out of fashion under the influence of the Neoclassical taste. However the future king of the United Kingdom, George IV (1762-1830) adept of exoticism, built the Brighton Pavilion between 1815 and 1822, followed by the Fishing Temple at Virginia water, built around 1825. These are the first examples of exotic inspiration that will become an alternative to the predominantly neoclassical taste of the Regency style in England, then in the rest of Europe.
Materials
BronzeSteel
Origin
circa 1830 FranceDimensions
Width : 11 cmLength : 31 cm
Height : 43 cm