A grandfather clock after David Roentgen
Cherry and oak corpus, white enamel dial with black and purple Arabic indices under domed glass, pierced gilded hands, one blued hand. Brass and cast-iron mountings. Presumably four-week running movement with hourly striking on a gong. Metronome shaped clock with two openings in the front, four oaken pinecone supports, triangular finial and a plumb line in the centre. The enamel with filled chips and cracks. The pendulum bob, weights, and rosette mountings replaced. Finials lost, the front scratched. H 221, W 62.5, D 22 cm.
Late 18th C., the movement probably made in Switzerland.
In his essay on the products of the Roentgen workshop, Josef Maria Greber identified seven different types of clock. The present work is the simplest design, and to our eyes the most modern looking. The form is based on a stepped obelisk and was offered with a variety of finials. The shape is often compared to a metronome, an instrument that provides tempo for musicians, the now familiar shape of which developed around the same time that this clock was made. David Roentgen decided upon a design that was both obvious and innovative, and it was produced with great success. Comparable examples of this clock exist, some with sumptuous bronze mountings. Many are housed in important collections like the Museum für Angewandte Kunst in Cologne, the former collection of Prince Georg of Saxony-Meiningen, and in the Württembergischen Landesmuseum, in Schwerin, Weimar, Leipzig, Coburg. At least one example was also sent with the Russian order to Pavlovsk. The clock shown here is based on these examples.
Literature
Cf. Greber, Abraham und David Roentgen, Möbel für Europa I, Starnberg 1980, p. 252 f.
Cf. Fabian, Kinzing + Roentgen Uhren aus Neuwied, Bad Neustadt 1983, no. 60 ff.
Cf. Fabian, Abraham und David Roentgen, Das noch aufgedundene Gesamtwerk ihrer Möbel- und Uhrenkunst, Bad Neustadt 1996, no. 421 ff.
Cf. Colsman, Möbel, Die Sammlung im Mudeum für Angewandte Kunst Köln, Stuttgart 1999, p, 308 f.