Chased, gilded or patinated bronze "elephant" mantel clock. - Lot 189

Lot n° 189
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Estimation :
3000 - 4000 EUR
Result with fees
Result : 9 660EUR
Chased, gilded or patinated bronze "elephant" mantel clock. - Lot 189
Chased, gilded or patinated bronze "elephant" mantel clock. The drum is surmounted by a seated Chinese figure holding an umbrella; the pachyderm supporting the movement is depicted barring. The painted glass dial shows the hours in Roman numerals, the minute graduations, the day of the month and the days of the week; it is signed "Lallemans à Paris". It stands on a quadrangular white marble base encircled by an ormolu rod; small flattened ball feet. Louis XV period. (Base, dial and movement replaced at the end of the 18th century). H : 47 - W : 27 - D : 15 cm The mid-18th century was a particularly fertile period for the French decorative arts. Indeed, every effort was made to witness the emergence of exceptional talent, and to attract the best European artists and craftsmen of the time to work for the great Parisian collectors. The clock we are proposing was made in this particular context, then modified in the last decades of the 18th century. Its original composition, featuring an exotic animal, in this case an elephant, is indicative of the extraordinary appeal of Asian, American and African lands to a clientele of wealthy French enthusiasts fascinated by the mysteries unveiled most often by travelers' accounts and engravings from books on these distant lands. These "exotic" motifs were quickly integrated into the watchmaking world, leading to the creation of luxurious clocks by the mid-18th century, whose movements were supported by elephants, rhinoceroses or lions, and topped by stilt-walkers, monkeys, Chinese, Indians or winged putto. An elephant clock topped by a monkey, originally holding a parasol, belongs to the Spanish royal collections (published in J. Ramon Colon de Carvajal, Catalogo de Relojes del Patrimonio nacional, Madrid, 1987, p.23, catalog no. 4); and a second of the same model, part of the famous collection of the Princes of Hesse at Fasanerie Castle in Fulda (illustrated in the exhibition catalog Gehäuse der Zeit, Uhren aus fünf Jahrhunderten im Besitz der Hessischen Hausstiftung, 2002, p.59).
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