Mantel clock
Clockmaker: Charles Dutertre French
Porcelain by Sèvres Manufactory French
Not on view
About ten allegorical clocks of this model, personifying Love and Friendship probably created by the marchand mercier Dominique Daguerre (d. 1796), are known today. Records of the Sèvres porcelain manufactory indicate that twenty-three columns suitable for clock cases were supplied to Daguerre between 1772 and 1791. Holding two hearts in one hand, the female figure represents Friendship while she originally held in her other hand a portrait medallion, now missing. The putto on the other side of the column, personifying Love, plays with a dog that is the symbol of Fidelity. A colored drawing for a similar clock is in the Museum’s collection (60.692.7). One of a group of drawings
that was sent to Albert, Duke of Sachsen-Teschen, and his wife Maria-Christina, a sister of Marie Antoinette, joint governors of the Low Countries from 1780 to 1792, they probably served as a sort of sale catalogue.