Mantel clock (pendule de chiminée)
Clockmaker: Paul Gudin Le Jeune French
Figure group by Meissen Manufactory German
Flowers by Vincennes Manufactory French
Not on view
Parisian guilds placed restrictions on the materials that could be incorporated in clockcases. However, entrepreneurs known as marchands-merciers circumvented these rules by combining parts obtained from various sources, resulting in clocks as elaborate as this one. Here, a porcelain figure group, known as The Hand Kiss, and a separate figure of a court jester are seen with rococo gilded-bronze stems bearing porcelain flowers. Peeping from the undergrowth at the twelve o’clock position is a porcelain cat with a dead bird.
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