Style Neo-Renaissance / Ref.15405

MAISON DENIERE : "Diana goddess", romantic style clock

Gilded bronze, translucent red enamel.

Conceived as a miniature architecture with two pediments directly in the center, this clock was produced in gilded bronze and translucent red enamel which gives it extravagance and luxury. The decorations seem to imitate the Boulle inlay, produced in parts (that’s to say that the bottom is made of enamel while the deocation in bronze). The gilded bronze decorations show some vegetation, foliage, leaves and flowers, exhibiting a great attention to the detail. The motifs located around the clock face show some candlesticks, in very worked shapes: they are shown, practically idential, in low-relief and as deocartions on the bottom of the enamel. Resting on a square base, from which the feet are chimeras with extended wings and open mouths, are giving them a terrifying appearance, the pedestal is decoarated with a coiling and jagged leather motif characteristic of the first art by Fontainebleau (1530-1550), motif reproduced in the cartouche. In the upper part, in the middle, is a Dianae with an ethereal and dynamic air made in high relief. It is a copy of the huntress Diane by Jean-Antoine Houdon, made in 1790, from which the bronze version is currently conserved in the Louvre Museum. Diane, svelte silhoutte balanced on the tip of a foot, seems to be captured in full chase. Pure feminine model figure, nobly holding her head, with elegant movements, her beauty gives rise to a respectful admiration. However, this integral nudity, judged improper during the exercise of the hunt, was scandalized by the contemporaries of Houdon.