Lenoble à Paris

This imposing clock exemplifies the role played by sculpture in the design of clock cases in late eighteenth-century France. Two caryatids in black bronze, draped in antique style, were modeled by an unknown sculptor who studied classical architecture. They support the upper part of a Greek temple, in the manner of the Erechtheion in Athens, built between 421 and 406 bc. Here the temple, interrupted by the clock dial, is chased and gilded by a talented craftsman, possibly François Rémond, who also executed the fabric that links the element of architecture with the caryatids’ heads, the mask of Apollo at the bottom of the pendulum, and the decoration at the base.