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RICHARD REDDING ANTIQUES |
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RICHARD REDDING ANTIQUES |
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An extremely fine Empire gilt bronze chariot clock of eight day duration, the white enamel chapter ring with black Roman numerals and a pierced palmette centre with blued steel hands for the hours and minutes set within the wheel of a chariot. The movement with anchor escapement, silk thread suspension, striking on the hour and half hour, with outside count wheel. The superb case representing ‘Le Char de Diana’ portraying the figure of Diana, goddess of hunting reaching her right hand toward her quiver of arrows on her back and holding in her outstretched left hand her bow and seated in her chariot drawn by a pair of leaping stags, each wearing a lambrequin sash, facing to the right and dragging a slain fawn behind the chariot, the whole on a shaped rectangular plinth elaborately cast with a central panelled scene depicting a pair of hounds attacking a wild boar, flanked either side by trophies that include hunting horns and ribbon-tied arrows and at each end by leaping griffins, the plinth on lion paw feet on a shaped rectangular mahogany veneered base with rounded ends mounted with a central Apollo mask amid scrolls and palmettes Paris, date circa 1810 Height with base 54 cm, length of the base 57 cm. Literature: Pierre Kjellberg, “Encyclopédie de la Pendule Française du Moyen Age au XXe Siècle”, 1997, p. 419, pl. G, illustrating a clock of identical design without the base with a movement by Armingault à Paris. Elke Niehüser, “Die Französische Bronzeuhr”, 1997, p. 244, pl. 946, illustrating an identical clock case model without the base. The importance of this clock relies upon the beauty of the case which represents the Chariot of Diana or Artemis, mythological goddess of hunting. According to legend she was the twin offspring of the supreme Olympian god Jupiter and Leto and was born on the island of Delos. Her twin Apollo was associated with the sun and conversely she with the moon. In her pre-Greek origins she was worshipped as an earth goddess, one of whose functions was to protect rather than destroy wild life. The Romans worshipped her as a triple deity, as Luna (the sky), Diana (the earth) and Hectate (the underworld). Diana is perhaps best known as the virgin huntress who lived in forests and the wilds in the company of her maidens and would not allow men to approach her. Ovid described how the young prince Actaeon, when out hunting, accidentally encountered Diana and her companions bathing. She duly punished him by turning him into a stag. He was then pursued by his own hounds which tore him to shreds. Not all events involving Diana were so violent. When for example Agamemnon was about to sacrifice Iphigenia, Diana transformed the girl into a deer. Deer or stags often played a role in her story and thus in art are either shown in close proximity or as here pulling her chariot. One of the most famous images of Diana or Artemis is the antique marble known as the Diana of Versailles (Roman Imperial copy, first-second century AD after a Greek original in the Musée du Louvre) on which other artists often based their own vision of the huntress. As here she has a long and lithe body and wears a lunar headdress, a short tunic or chiton tucked up to her knees to make it easier to pursue her quarry, while her cape or himation wraps over her left shoulder, clinging closely to her form. Likewise she stretches her right hand toward her arrows and is accompanied by a stag. Further symbols related to her are seen on the clock plinth which includes pairs of hunting horns and arrows while at centre is a hunting scene depicting a wild boar attacked by hounds - so often associated with Diana. Finally we see on the base a reference to Diana’s twin in the form of a central Apollo mask. |