A ROMAN CARVED PORPHYRY CAPITAL MOUNTED AS A TIMEPIECE THE CAPITAL, CIRCA III-IV CENTURY A.D | THE CLOCK TIMEPIECE AND MOUNTS, LOUIS XVI, CIRCA 1780, THE MOVEMENT BY JACQUES FRANÇOIS VAILLANT, THE ENAMEL DIAL BY DUBUISSON

Maison Jules Lefebvre, Antiquaire, sold Hotel Drouot, Paris, 5 February 1890, lot 37, Catalogue des bronzes d'art et d'ameublement anciens et modernes..., matières dures, objets variés, meubles, tapisseries, provenant de la maison Jules Lefebvre, Paul Chevalier Comissaire-Preiseur / Charles Manheim expert.

This extraordinaire object is a representation of the Picturesque movement that swept parts of European culture in the second half of the 18th century. In a way, it is the perfect materialization of Diderot’s words when writing about the poetic of ruins on Hubert Robert paintings: “The ideas ruins evoke in me are grand. Everything comes to nothing, everything perishes, everything passes, only the world remains, only time endures.” 

This timepiece embodies a contradiction between the value of timelessness traditionally associated with the antique, but at the same time remind us of the fleeting time and the ephemerality of the present. A sophisticated object such as this could only be the commission of a very educated patron or of a stylish Parisian marchand-mercier, such as Dominique Daguerre, with access to a highly collectable fragment made of a prized material.

The way the capital seats on a rough naturalistic patinated bronze surface, with a lizard in motion and with a plant growing to one side, is trying to convey a spontaneity to the composition similar to the capricci seen in two-dimensional works such as the ones popularized by Giovanni Battista Piranesi and Giovanni Paulo Pannini.

This fragment of a capital is an incredibly rare survival of a crucial architectonic element from the Roman Empire period. If dozens of porphyry columns are known and published, Del Buffalo, in his seminal Porphyry, lists only one carved capital from the Roman period (Dario Del Buffalo, Porphyry, 2012, p.194, C90), a Corinthian capital with elephants from 2nd century a.D. which entered the Vatican museum collections in 1807 from Carlo Albacini. R. Delbrück in Antike Porphyrwerke, 1937, pp. 134ff, the only standard Corinthian porphyry capitals he mentions are those of the tomb of Frederic VI in the Palermo cathedral although he mentions the possibility of not being ancient. Del Buffallo dates these as 12/13th centuries. The present example is therefore a new addition to the corpus of worked porphyry and seems to be an unprecedented example of a fragment decoratively mounted as a clock.

The present lot is described in the 1890 sale catalogue with property from maison antiquaire Jules Lefebvre: "Curieuse pendule composée d'un chapiteau antique en porphyre oriental rouge, qui contient un movemen ancien, avec cadran de Dubuisson battant la demi-seconde. Au pourtour du chapiteau, figure d'amour et branche de roses en bronze doré. Le socle ovale, aussi en bronze doré, date du temps de Louis XVI. Haut, 46 centimètres" There is a discrepancy with our lot, when mentioning a branch of roses, which possibly existed to the right side and is now lost, but the rarity of a carved porphyry capital as clock, the matching dial signature and the rare two second intervals leave no doubt that it is indeed the same object.

A clock signed by Vaillant sold Koller, 22 March 2018, lot 1183, allows for a relevant comparison as it uses carved white marble simulating rockwork to have the clock movement and dial inset, framed by bronzes figures depicting “L’Amour offrant La Colombe”, and being the putto holding the dove quite comparable to the present piece. Jacques François Vaillant was received as mâitre in 1750 and by 1758 was based in Quai des Augustiions. Not many documentary information on him has come to light, but he has died in 1786.

The unusual dial in the present clock is proudly signed by Dubuisson who was, with Joseph Coteau, the leading enameller of his day. The clockmaker Louis Berthoud, when writing about an enamelled dial Dubuisson had made for him stated that it could “be regarded as a masterpiece of outstanding craftmanship” (see Gillian Wilson, European Clocks in the J. Paul Getty Museum, 1996, p.170).