The Metropolitan Museum of Art - Portrait of an Unknown Man

David Roentgen: Nemours Clock

Abraham and David Roentgen were renowned German cabinetmakers whose workshop was famed throughout Europe for its exquisite marquetry work and complex mechanical devices. Proportioned for a stately public room or library, this musical clock is likely to have been the first Roentgen object to reach the United States, belonging to Gouverneur Morris, one of the nation’s founding fathers. Not only does it tell time, but it also displays the interior works, which are hidden in most clocks.

This clock, from The Nemours Foundation, is featured in the exhibition Extravagant Inventions: The Princely Furniture of the Roentgens (on view October 30, 2012–January 27, 2013).

Video/Audio (4)

David Roentgen: Long-Case Clock
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The Roentgens' Berlin Secretary Cabinet
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Rolltop Desk by David Roentgen: Demonstration
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Rolltop Desk by David Roentgen: Animation
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Portrait of an Unknown Man

Possibly by Joachim Smith (active 1774)

Date:: 1798
Culture:: British
Medium:: Colored wax on glass over paper, painted grey-blue with water-color Frame, brown wood
Dimensions:: 8-5/8 x 7-1/4 in. (21.9 x 18.4 cm)
Classification:: Sculpture
Credit Line:: Gift of Mrs. J. Insley Blair, 1939
Accession Number:: 39.180.3

This artwork is not on display

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David Roentgen: Nemours Clock

Portrait of an Unknown Man

Possibly by Joachim Smith (active 1774)

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David Roentgen: Nemours Clock

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Portrait of an Unknown Man

Possibly by Joachim Smith (active 1774)

Met Media

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Met Store