Fireplace clock
Harlekin with bgpipes amongst colourful flowers on a fire-gilt bronse base
Meissen, around 1745
Model by J.J. Kändler
Board signed: "Claude Fabre A Nismes"
The stylistically harmonious overall design of rooms has always been a matter of great concern for designers. And, finding decorative pieces, wall sconces a.s.o equipped with branches and flowers, then there also must be clocks in that design. Here the figure of Harlequin is the central motif under the clock. This character was very popular then, embodying, also in relation to the picaresque novels like Grimmelshausen's "Simplicissimus", a critical, obscene, and anarchic principle. This was seen as a gratifying, thought-provoking contrast to one's own life (quite like the dwarfs at the Spanish Court). This Harlequin was modelled around 1745 after a model by J. J. Kändler; the clock is from France.