Empire Gilt Bronze Mantel Clock, "Allegory of Summer"

Finely chased bronze, mercury gilt with a warm rose gold tone. The dial with white enamel chapter ring, Roman numerals for the hours and outer Arabic minute track, blued steel Breguet hands, set within a guilloché gilt centre and inserted into a great bound sheaf of wheat that conceals the movement. To the left stands the goddess Ceres, allegory of Summer, draped à l'antique and crowned with wheat ears, raising in her right hand a crescent sickle. To the right, a round wicker winnowing basket (van) set against a threshing flail, emblems of the summer harvest.

Stepped rectangular plinth, the central panel with a fine bas relief of a peasant ploughing with a pair of oxen drawing an araire, flanked on either projecting block by laurel wreaths crossed with rake and spade. Raised on six turned bun feet.

Countwheel movement, silk thread suspension, striking the hours and half hours on a bell. With key.

Dimensions: 43 x 30.5 x 11 cm.

Condition: Excellent. The case professionally cleaned, the original mercury gilding preserved throughout with a fine rose gold tone.

Jean-André Reiche (1752 Steinbach, Saxony – 1817 Paris) ranks among the foremost bronziers of the Consulate and Empire. Established in Paris from 1785, he ran a substantial workshop first in the rue Vieille-du-Temple, later in the rue des Trois Bornes, supplying gilt bronze clock cases and mounts to the leading horlogers of the period including Lepaute, Bréguet and Le Roy. His surviving livres de modèles, preserved in the Bibliothèque des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, record an extensive allegorical and mythological repertoire from which this composition derives. Examples by Reiche are held in the Mobilier National, the Château de Fontainebleau, and the Residenz München.

Literature:
Elke Niehüser, French Bronze Clocks 1700–1830, Schiffer Publishing, Atglen 1999.
Pierre Kjellberg, La Pendule française du Moyen Âge au XXe siècle, Les Éditions de l'Amateur, Paris 1997.
Hans Ottomeyer / Peter Pröschel, Vergoldete Bronzen. Die Bronzearbeiten des Spätbarock und Klassizismus, Klinkhardt & Biermann, Munich 1986.
Tardy, La Pendule française, Paris.
Jean-Dominique Augarde, Les Ouvriers du Temps. La pendule à Paris de Louis XIV à Napoléon Ier, Antiquorum Editions, Geneva 1996.