Louis XV style clock; late 19th century.
Gilt bronze.
Signed dial.
Preserves key and pendulum.
Measurements: 70 x 55 x 17 cm.
Table clock made entirely in gilded bronze, in the style of the Louis XV period, in the rococo style. It is a totally sculptural piece, worked in a rounded shape and finished with a meticulous cold chiselling work. The rococo inspiration leaves aside the classical architectural structures so typical of 19th-century table clocks, and gives rise to a composition of great fantasy, dynamism and naturalistic sense. It is a stepped structure, divided into three levels: the base, the legs supporting the clock and the clock case. The design visually unifies the whole, following a totally anti-classical criterion which was one of the bases of rococo, and which the 19th-century craftsmen were able to understand and apply here with clarity. The base follows an open, moving and asymmetrical design, based on branches with an organic appearance, suggesting vegetation without actually specifying it, as is the case with the decorative motifs of the rococo period. Thus, we see sinuous forms whose texture is reminiscent of a plant, but also of a shell or even the ripples of water. A fanciful but harmonious blend of styles typical of 19th-century historicisms, which rarely composed designs with elements from a single style of the past. The case of the watch itself takes the form of a horizontal cylinder, raised on a cut-out pillar which is the only architectural concession in the design, used as a useful transitional body between forms and motifs. The dial features Roman numerals in black on a white background, with openwork hands.