In the Louis XV style, emblematic of Europa and the bull, the white enamel dial with Roman and Arabic chapters signed 'JACQUIER PARIS', within a drum-shaped case with swags of scrolling foliage and surmounted by the figures of 'Europa' and 'Amor', mounted onto the back of a bull on a scrolling pierced rockwork rocaille base, regilt
30³⁄₄ in. (78 cm.) high, 18 in. (46 cm.) wide, 12 in. (30.5 cm.) deep

Baron Alphonse de Rothschild (1827-1905), Grand Hall, in the Château de Ferrières, Seine-et-Marne.
By descent to the present owners.

C. Frégnac and J. Wilhelm, Belles Demeures de Paris, 16e - 19e siècle, 1997, p. 78.

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Lot Essay

The clock, designed in the Louis XV picturesque manner, celebrates the Triumph of Love and derives from Ovid's Metamorphoses concerning plants, animals and the pagan gods' ability to commune with mortals. Jupiter, the father of the gods, is represented as the loving abductor, who, upon seeing the nymph Europa gathering flowers by the shore, adopted the guise of a bull to carry her away to the consternation of her companions.

The present clock is a variation on the celebrated model displayed in several collections, typically with attendant figures at the base; an example signed by Jean-Joseph de Saint-Germain and originating from the Château de Saint-Cloud and the Tuileries, is exhibited at the Musée de Louvre, Paris (OA5168), and illustrated in H. Ottomeyer, P. Proschel, et. al., Vergoldete Bronzen, Munich, 1986, vol. I, p. 125, fig. 2.8.8. Related models with slight variants in the foliage and form from the collections at Schloss Johannisburg, Aschaffenburg and the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, are illustrated, ibid. figs. 2.8.7 and 2.8.9