Table clock with calendar

The publication in 1831 of Victor Hugo’s novel Notre Dame de Paris, known in its English translation as The Hunchback of Notre Dame, was hugely successful. Hugo’s success further ignited an already nascent enthusiasm for France’s medieval past, and it gave support to the revival of Gothic design in the decorative arts as well as in architecture. One of the most celebrated exponents of this essentially romantic taste was the architect and designer Eugène-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc (1814–1879).[1] Beginning in the 1840s as the rebuilder of the Romanesque abbey church at Vézelay in Burgundy,[2] Viollet-le-Duc subsequently became the architect and designer of many of what are now regarded as quintessentially French Gothic elements of the Notre-Dame Cathedral, Ile Saint-Louis, Paris,[3] the setting of Hugo’s tragic romance. English enthusiasm for Gothic design long predated the French, however. Horace Walpole’s domesticated country house at Twickenham, Strawberry Hill (1749–1776),[4] and William Beckford’s newly created abbey at Fonthill in Wiltshire (1796–1822) [5] are prime examples of the Gothic revival in English architecture.



The Museum’s clock is the design of a nineteenth-century Frenchman, Lucien Falize (1839–1897), and the product of French craftsmen made expressly for a nineteenth-century Englishman. It was Alfred Morrison (1821–1897),[6] the son of James Morrison (1789– 1857), who was made extraordinarily wealthy in the textile business.[7] James Morrison purchased many of the furnishings and objets d’art from Beckford and eventually the remains of the abbey, whose imposing central tower had collapsed in 1825, taking with it the vast Great Western Hall at its base. The surviving structure became one of Morrison’s country residences, and it was inherited by his second son, Alfred, for whom the Museum’s clock was created. Alfred continued the tradition of collecting begun by his father, but he specialized in autograph letters and manuscripts, which were much admired by his contemporaries, as well as becoming a patron of a wide variety of contemporary craftsmen, Lucien Falize among them.



The son of Alexis Falize (1811–1898) and the second in three generations of jewelers and makers of small, precious objects, Lucien came of age in a period in which Paris became famous for luxury goods produced by such firms as Cartier, Boucheron, and Lalique, as well as Falize.[8] The clock that Falize created for Morrison is a miniature late- Gothic-style tower, but it is unlike any surviving Gothic clock of similar size. Falize may have been inspired by an actual Gothic church tower, or he may have been influenced by the structures that house clockwork inside Gothic churches. No more than fifteen years before Falize’s design, a new clock by Auguste-Lucien Verité (1806–1887) was housed in a Gothic Revival structure inside the Cathedral of Saint-Etienne Beauvais, France. More comparable to Falize’s clock in form is the housing of a timepiece that stands in the Cathedral of Saint-Jean in Lyon.[9] However, the elaborate structure above the dials of the four-sided Lyon clock is quite unlike Falize’s extravagant golden roof studded with cabochon-cut amethysts and surmounted by a svelte figure of Truth, minimally clothed in a windblown scarf. The Falize case also displays a brief compendium of heraldic references and late-medieval iconography, some of it updated to include later developments. All of it is labeled to provide certainty to the meaning of each element.[10]



The case is divided into three tiers. The base is of cast silver with heraldic reliefs on all four sides and gold figures seated on the corners. The midsection has windowlike silver frames for eight basse-taille enameled plaques. The top carries two more plaques on the sides and time and calendar dials on the front and back sides. These are within Gothic pointed arches complete with silver crockets and finials and with winged gargoyles at the corners. The midsection is further enriched with carnelian and jasper colonettes, and the top section with lapis lazuli colonettes.



The principal dial registers the time (I–XII for the hours) engraved on the interior of a convex lens of rock crystal. The minutes (5–60, by fives) are marked on the silver bezel for the lens, where each minute is indicated by tiny circular punchmarks. In the closed position of the lens the hour numerals cover translucent blue enamel trefoils on the dial, which are separated from each other by various floral ornaments in colored enamels. The center of the dial is a mixture of cloisonné and painted enamel ornaments depicting pink fleurs-de-lis, pink and green blossoms, and tiny yellow six-pointed flowers in a sunburst pattern. Radiating from the central arbor are sculptured gold hour and minute hands, both set with tiny diamonds. Directly below the dial, a three-dimensional crowing cock presides over the time side of the clock.



The reverse side carries a comparable lens-covered circle encompassing three smaller circular dials that register calendrical information. These are separated by openwork gold branches incorporating ribbon scrolls with the Latin words “Heri” (yesterday), “Hodi” (today), and “Cras” (tomorrow). The top dial consists of a ribbon with the days of the week identified in French and in the center the emblem of the firm of Bapst and Falize: a ring and a pendant pearl flanked by the initials “B” and “F” in cloisonné enamel.[11] Moving clockwise, the second dial is marked 1–31 by twos for the days of the month and includes in the center a winged sandglass encircled by the serpent representing eternity, all in colored enamels. The third is divided into four segments, with the months marked in French and an enameled flower representing each season. Each dial has a diamond-set gold hand. Below these dials an owl presides over this side of the clock.



Here the time and calendrical functions of the clock end. The remaining spaces on the clockcase are filled with ten gold plaques incised with allegorical images covered with translucent enamels in a riot of brilliant color: blue, green, red, yellow, pale green, lavender, flesh colors, and more. The subject of each is labeled in Latin: FIDES (Faith), SPES (Hope), CARITAS (Charity), ECCLESIA (Church), ORAGIO (Prayer), SAPIENSIA (Wisdom), LIBERAGIO (Liberty), INVESGIGAGIO (Inquiry), LABOR (Industry), and LEX (Law). Falize was reported to have been particularly proud of these enamels as they represented for him the reinvention of a variety of basse-taille enameling that had flourished in France and Italy in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.[12] His pride in these enamels probably accounts for his inclusion of the clock eight years after its completion in the firm’s display at the Paris Exposition Universelle of 1889.[13]



Two panels of lapis lazuli that flank the Morrison silver relief on the base are marked “·L·FALIZE· / ·INV· / ·EXECUT·” AND “·PARIS· / ·1881·,” respectively. A watercolor design in the Metropolitan Museum’s collection for the clock (1991.1254) by Falize [14] displays the Gothic-style initials of King Louis XII (1462–1515) of France, and his wife, Anne, heiress of Brittany (1476–1514), below the enameled plaques depicting ecclesia and oragio on the time-telling side of the clock. This is the configuration now on the clock, but there is evidence that the enameled plaques were rearranged at least twice in the past, no doubt to match their symbolism with the silver reliefs on the four sides of the base of the clock that refer to King Louis XII, Pope Julius II (1442–1513), King Henry VIII of England (1491–1547), and Alfred Morrison (1821–1897), respectively. The personifications of the Cardinal Virtues that sit at the corners of the lower rank of the plaques have also been rearranged. The plaques on the clock are superb. Elegant, too, are the four Cardinal Virtues (Temperance, Prudence, Fortitude, and Justice). These were recognized at the time to have been inspired by the early sixteenth- century sculptures seated on the four corners of the monumental tomb of King Louis XII and Anne in the Abbey of Saint Denis, and they amplify the legacy of the royal couple commemorated on what is now the front, or time-telling side, of the clock. The four seated females on the clock are cast in gold, each identified by her customary attributes and by the name engraved on a shield on the front of her pedestal. They were modeled by Léon Chédeville (died 1883),[15] a sculptor who exhibited his work in the Paris Salons between 1875–83. His signature appears on the clock on the silver frame below the enamel depicting Temperance. An article written soon after the clock was created has further identified the artist who chased the details on these figures as Claudius Marioton (1844–1919),[16] another of the sculptors now best remembered as participants in the Paris Salons of the last quarter of the nineteenth century.



The spring-driven movement of the clock consists of two rectangular plates held apart by four cylindrical pillars. It has a going and a striking train wound in tandem by means of a single winding square concealed under the figure of Truth at the top of the clock. Governed by a rack-and-snail system, it strikes hours and quarters by means of four hammers on four coils of a gong mounted on the back plate of the clock. A lever in the base of the clock activates a repeating mechanism. Apparently, the sound was intended to evoke memories of the pealing bells of a late-Gothic church.[17]



On the underside of the base, the maker’s name appears: “LE ROY ET FILS / Horlogers / fournisseurs brevétas / de S. M. la Reine à Londres.” This mention of an appointment to Queen Victoria aids in certain identification of the firm. Although there existed two firms named Le Roy et fils or Leroy et fils during this period, both with establishments in Paris (at 15 Palais Royal and 115 Palais Royal, respectively) and branches in London,[18] the firm that held the Royal Warrant from the English queen was the one at 15 Palais Royal listed among the privileged clockmakers between 1864 and 1893.[19] Tardy’s Dictionnaire des horlogers francais [20] supplies the further information that the founder of this firm, Bazile Le Roy (1731–1804), was unrelated to Julien and Pierre Le Roy, the illustrious Paris clockmakers of the eighteenth century. Bazile’s son was Bazile-Charles (1765–1839), also a clockmaker, who managed to stay in business during the French Revolution by spelling his name backwards. Later, he supplied clocks to Napoleon and in 1829 moved the shop to the Palais Royal, where he was associated with his son Charles-Louis (1794–1865/6) in the establishment then called Le Roy et Fils.[21] By 1835, they had become clockmakers to the French king and to the Ministère de la Marine, but by 1845 Charles-Louis had sold the firm to Casimir Halley Desfontaines (1794–1838) on condition that he would keep the name. In 1866, Desfontaines also became clockmaker to the French navy, followed by appointments to the queen of England and the emperor of Brazil.[22] The London branch of the firm opened in 1856 at 215 Regent Street.



Cedric Jagger’s research into the history of the British Royal Collection of clocks confirms that this was, indeed, the firm with the Royal Warrant beginning in 1864 and continuing as late as 1893.[23] In 1883 Casimir was succeeded by his son Georges, who died in 1888, leaving the firm to his brother Jules. He became associated the next year with Louis Leroy, and the firm then became known as the Ancienne Maison LeRoy et fils. L. Leroy et Cie.[24]



Possession of the clock continued in the Morrison family until 1938, when it was sold in London by John Granville Morrison.[25] It was then sold in New York in 1955 as the property of Antique Dome, Inc., of Miami Beach, Florida,[26] and in 1991, it was sold in New York as the property of Harry J. Reicher.[27] It was bought for the Museum by Mrs. Charles Wrightsman, who, together with her husband, donated a large part of the Museum’s distinguished collection of French decorative arts. cv



Notes (For key to shortened references see bibliography in Vincent and Leopold, European Clocks and Watches in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. NY: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2015)



1 For the wide variety of his designs and architectural drawings together with an extensive

bibliography, see Viollet-le-Duc 1980.

2 Saulnier 1980.

3 Erlande-Brandenburg 1980.

4 Wainwright 1989, pp. 70–107; Clarke 2009; Snodin 2009, pp. 15–17, 20–31.

5 Wainwright 1989, pp. 108–16. See also Gemmett 2003.

6 Dakers 2011, pp. 225–47. See also Bell 2004; Dakers 2010, pp. 201–14, and p. 189, fig. 2, for a portrait of Morrison by John Brett (1831–1902).

7 Gatty 1977; Dakers 2011, pp. 82–112. See also Dakers 2010, pp. 189–201, for details of his possession of Fonthill Abbey.

8 For details of the lives and products of the three generations of Falize jewelers, see Purcell 1999.

9 See “L’Horloge Astronomique de la Cathedrale Saint-Jean de Lyon, http://www.ens-lyon.fr/RELIE/ Cadrans/Musee/HorlogesAstro/Lyon/Cathedrale. htm.

10 For more complete descriptions of these elements, see Sotheby’s 1991, no. 233; Purcell 1999, pp. 92–95.

11 See Le Corbeiller 1996, who states that this mark was not registered until 1892 but was used during the period of the partnership from 1880 to 1892.

12 Oeuvres Nouvelles” 1882–83, p. 30, with a steel engraving of the clock on p. 29.

13 Falize 1889–90, p. 5.

14 Acc. no. 1991.1254.

15 Lami 1914–21, vol. 1 (1914), pp. 364–65.

16 “Pendule artistique” 1882, p. 202; see also Kjellberg 1987, pp. 457–58.

17 “Pendule artistique” 1882, p. 204.

18 Allix 1974, pp. 120–24.

19 Jagger 1983, pp. 214–15, 316–18.

20 Tardy 1971–72, vol. 2, pp. 406–7.

21 Ibid., p. 407.

22 Ibid.

23 Jagger 1983, pp. 316–18.

24 Tardy 1971–72, vol. 2, p. 409.

25 Christie’s 1938, p. 8, no. 30.

26 Parke-Bernet Galleries 1955, p. 72, no. 342, ill. p. 73.

27 Sotheby’s 1991, no. 233, ill.