Pendulum clock with Skeleton movement with five dials. Paris, late 18th century

Pendulum clock with Skeleton movement with five dials. Paris, late 18th century.
Mercury gilt bronze and enameled dials. White marble base.
Measurements: 44 x 22,5 x 12,5 cm.

Arch pendulum clock with skeleton movement from the end of the 18th century. Visible movement in chiseled and gilded bronze; it presents the compilation of a total of five polychrome enameled dials, which is a rarity. At the top, a dial indicated the phases of the sun. In the center, a dial with the hours and minutes, with two small dials inside for the months of the year and the day of the week. At the bottom, the phases of the moon. White marble base with brass pearl frieze supported by four runners.

The particularity of the skeleton clock is to reveal its mechanism on the back and through its openwork dial. Heir to the portico clock, it is usually composed of an arch supporting one or more dials. This form was very successful in the last years of the eighteenth century and until the first half of the nineteenth century due to the desire of watchmakers to demonstrate their expertise and technical progress, as well as in response to the decorative overload of figurative clocks.