Description
To be executed in gilt bronze and rouge marble; silvered metal dial; black marble platform
The youthful god, holding the thyrsus staff and raising a wine cup, aside an altar topped by a ewer and syrinx and fronted by the clock with a reclining Bacchante mount below the dial; the frieze with a hunting horn and cornucopiae within acanthus scrolls 17in. High
As discussed for cat. #30, Bacchic imagery was appropriate for dining room clocks. Here the god is shown with his thyrsus, a staff topped by a pinecone (a symbol of fertility) and entwined with ivy, sacred to Bacchus. His retinue comprised Pan, whose attributes were the syrinx (or panpipes, a graduated row of tubes bound together) and the horn trumpet, a phallic symbol supposed to promote fertility.
Medium
Watercolor and gouache over lithographic line, on paper
Signed/Inscribed
Inscribed: J. B. A. / Imprie Lithoque de C Motte rue des Marais Fg. St. Gn. Numbered: 16
Dimensions:
50.80cm wide 67.40cm high (20.00 inches wide 26.54 inches high)
Status
FOR SALE