A NORTHERN EUROPEAN NEOCLASSICAL POLYCRHOME, PARCEL GILT AND BRONZED WOOD ORGAN CLOCK, CIRCA 1790

Kowar, H., Die Wiener Flötenuhr, 2001

The late 18th century was a golden age for the development of the tall case musical clock, fitted with bellows-driven wooden pipe organs. These were particularly favoured in German-speaking territories, and important makers included Peter Bofenschen in Hanover, Heinrich Rauschenplatt in Göttingen, and the court clockmaker Christian Ernst Kleemeyer in Berlin. Clockwork and organ manufacturers often worked with preeminent cabinetmakers to produce elaborate architectonic cases, such as Peter Kinzing in Neuwied who partnered with his neighbour David Roentgen and was named horloger de la Reine by Marie-Antoinette, and in Stockholm Pehr Strand provided movements for cases made by the leading woodcarver and mirror-maker Pehr Ljung in the latest Gustavian taste. Referred to as Flötenuhren (flute clocks), these timepieces were sometimes the result of a collaboration with important composers of the day. At the Esterhazy palace, Franz Joseph Haydn wrote several pieces for organ clocks created by the court librarian Father Primitivus Niemecz (1750-1806), one of which is now in the Speelklok Museum in Utrecht, and Beethoven was persuaded by his friend Johann Nepomuk Maelzel, inventor of the metronome, to write his Wellington’s Victory symphony originally as a musical clock version that was manufactured as a secretaire by the Viennese clockmaker Franz Egidius Arzt, formerly with Pelham Galleries, London and Paris.

The richly carved neoclassical details of this case, which retains much of its old polychrome surface decoration, is particularly noteworthy for the presence of the four elegant female figures wearing Levantine headdresses, indicating the clock would have originally stood in a salon turc. European fascination with all things Turkish had been growing throughout the 18th century, following the defeat of the Ottoman armies at the Siege of Vienna in 1683 that definitively eliminated the military threat to the West posed by the Sublime Porte. Attention was now directed towards the colourful and richly decorated interiors and costumes of the Ottoman Empire, which became part of a broader interest in exoticism during the Rococo period, and Turkish scenes and figures in Turkish costume began appearing in paintings, wall decoration, porcelain and goldsmiths' work alongside Chinoiserie and singerie themes.

The appeal of what Lady Mary Wortley Montagu described as 'the refinements of an indolent voluptuousness' continued well into the final decades of the 18th century, particularly in France, where the King's brother the Comte d'Artois commissioned a cabinet turc in his Paris residence the Palais du Temple in 1776, with luxuriously upholstered seat furniture supplied by Georges Jacob. This prompted a sort of design competition with his sister-in-law Queen Marie-Antoinette, who promptly commissioned her own boudoir turc at Fontainebleau the following year, designed by the architect Richard Mique with boiseries decorated by the Rousseau brothers. Both would then install further Turkish salons at Versailles, setting off a trend among the late Ancien Regime aristocracy.

The fashion for all things à la turque also extended to music, influenced by the distinctive percussion used by Turkish Janissary military bands, which had become very popular throughout Central and Eastern Europe. Many of the era's major composers integrated 'Turkish' elements into their works, for example Haydn in his Military Symphony, Mozart's opera Die Entführung aus dem Serail, and perhaps most famously Beethoven in his Ninth Symphony. Such music was ideally suited for a clock intended for a Turkish Room, like the offered lot.