Consulate/Imperium Clock, Paris, ca. 1800-1805

Small Consulate / Empire period table clock. Paris, France, Consulate / early Empire period, ca. 1800-1805.
Gilt and blued bronze. Machinery signed: "à Paris / Bailly".
The clock retains its original key. The machinery probably needs to be overhauled.
Measurements: 34 x 27 x 11 cm.

Table clock made of mercury gilt and blued bronze, representative of the refined artistic taste of the transition between the Consulate (1799-1804) and the first years of the Napoleonic Empire (1804-1815). In this period, French decorative art is characterized by its neoclassical inspiration and by the adoption of symbolic and exotic themes, especially those related to Antiquity and Pharaonic Egypt, after the famous Napoleonic campaign in Egypt (1798-1801).

Its particularly small size (34 cm in height) makes it a rare and unusual piece within the repertoire of Empire sculptural clocks, usually of larger dimensions. This contained proportion makes it a singular piece of great charm and decorative versatility.

The design presents a rich scenography with a male figure of pharaonic inspiration, patinated in black and richly dressed with golden skirt and headdress, leaning on the central body of the clock while holding a chain. To his right are an anchor and a cylindrical boot, elements that symbolically refer to overseas voyages, navigation and trade -themes especially present in Napoleonic imagery.

The machinery is integrated into a drum topped by a floral vase. The rectangular base, in blued bronze, rests on gilded truncated cone-shaped legs and is decorated on the front with a gilded bronze motif of two intertwined horns of plenty, a classic symbol of prosperity and fertility, which reinforces the allegorical charge of the whole.
The machinery, visible from the back, is engraved with the signature: "à Paris / Bailly", corresponding to a watchmaker active in the French capital in the early years of the nineteenth century. The serial number "13360" is also visible.
Refined and representative piece of Parisian artistic watchmaking of the early nineteenth century, combining technical excellence, sculptural imagination and taste for the exotic.