The Metropolitan Museum of Art

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).

David Roentgen: Long-Case Clock
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Rolltop Desk by David Roentgen: Animation
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Beaker with cover

Meissen Manufactory (German, 1710–present)

Date:: ca. 1725–30
Culture:: German (Meissen)
Medium:: Hard-paste porcelain
Dimensions:: H. with cover 6 1/2 in. (16.5 cm.)
Classification:: Ceramics
Credit Line:: Gift of R. Thornton Wilson, in memory of Florence Ellsworth Wilson, 1950
Accession Number:: 50.211.231 ab

This artwork is currently on display in Gallery 533

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Beaker with cover

Meissen Manufactory (German, 1710–present)

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David Roentgen: Nemours Clock

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Beaker with cover

Meissen Manufactory (German, 1710–present)

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