The Dance of Time: Three Nymphs Supporting a Clock

We continue our special month with the Frick Collection with this amazing clock, which is also the only known 18th-century clock that features terracotta not as a sketch medium but as finished sculpture. 

Jean-Baptiste Lepaute, clockmaker to Louis XVI, worked in close collaboration with Claude Michel Clodion, one of the most inventive and technically gifted sculptors of his time, to create this unique clock. Clodion was trained in Rome, where he studied classical art. Here, he sculpted three semi-draped nymphs dancing around a column, perhaps the three Horae (hours), who personify the passage of time in Greek mythology. They support Lepaute’s complex pendulum clock with a rotating annular dial meant to be admired through a transparent glass globe. Lepaute and Clodion created this extraordinary piece for its first owner, the architect Alexandre-Théodore Brongniart.

Beautiful isn't it? Don't focus much on the time this Sunday!  : )

P.S. If you admire the delicate style of this clock masterpiece, you will surely enjoy getting to know more about the Rococo French painter François Boucher. <3