The Metropolitan Museum of Art - Female bust portrait

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).

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Female bust portrait

Date:: mid-16th century
Culture:: Italian (Milan)
Medium:: Emerald plasma and silver
Dimensions:: L. 1-3/4 in. (4.4 cm)
Classification:: Lapidary Work
Credit Line:: The Lesley and Emma Sheafer Collection, Bequest of Emma A. Sheafer, 1973
Accession Number:: 1974.356.788

This artwork is not on display

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David Roentgen: Nemours Clock

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Female bust portrait

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