Bronze, patinated and gilded, silver and gold inlay, and enamel
Clock: 25 1/4 in (64.2 cm) x 22 1/2 in (57.2 cm)
Candelabra en suite: 32 in (81.3 cm) x 14 1/2 in (36.8 cm) - not illustrated.
French (Saint-Denis), circa 1873

MARKED:
‘CHRISTOFLE & Cie 222’ (clock), ‘CHRISTOFLE & Cie 223’ and ‘CHRISTOFLE & Cie 224’ (candelabra. Each piece is marked on the right-hand side of its base.

EXHIBITED:
World Columbian Exposition, Chicago, 1893

LITERATURE:
James Shapp, Shapp’s World Fair Photographed (Chicago and Philadelphia, 1893), p.101

The clock and candelabra are extensively documented in the Christofle Archive (Musée Christofle). Contemporary photographs show records of three clocks based on the form of a Chinese table screen, of which the present example is the most elaborate. Drawings signed by Reiber for the front and back of a slightly simpler case, but identically decorated on the flat surfaces, are dated 1869. The design for the clock face, also dated 1869, survives as does one for the pendulum. Four designs for the cloisonnee enamel panels on the clock and candelabra by Reiber are signed and dated 1872-73.

The clock may have remained in the possession of Christofle, who exhibited it in 1893 at the World Columbian Exhibition. Its subsequent history remains unknown until it surfaced in Australia around 1990.

A second ‘table screen’ clock, probably dating from the late 1860s, is in the collection of the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. A more modestly conceived clock and pair of candelabra, also recorded in the Christofle Archive, was on the Paris art market in 1997.

COLLECTION: Musée d’Orsay, Paris