PROPERTY FROM THE COLLECTION OF FERDINAND AND ADELE BLOCH-BAUER This Viennese 18th Century porcelain clock comes from the renowned collection of the Austrian couple, Ferdinand and Adele Bloch-Bauer. The Bloch-Bauers were great patrons of the arts and they owned an extensive collection of Viennese classical porcelain, including a considerable number of rococo porcelain sculptures. A catalogue of the porcelain collection, consisting of about 230 items at the time, was published by Richard Ernst in 1925 under the title Wiener Porzellan des Klassizismus. Die Sammlung Bloch-Bauer. The Bloch-Bauers owned a castle, "Schlos-Jungfer", in Brezan (outside of Prague) and a palais on the Schillerplatz in Vienna. Ferdinand was a very prominent industrialist and longtime President of the "Friends of the Museum" in Austria, a prestigious function in the art world. Ferdinand and Adele Bloch-Bauer kept a 'salon' in their Vienna palais, frequented by politicians, intellectuals and artists. They were best known for their patronage of the artist Gustav Klimt and they owned seven of his most important paintings, which were all prominently hung as a Memorial Room following Adele's death to form a "Klimt gallery". Klimt painted two large portraits of Adele, and presumably used her as a model in his famous "Judith and Holofernes" pictures. In addition to the most important collection ever of classicistic Viennese porcelain of the Sorgenthal period, they also collected works by most other important Austrian artists of the 19th and early 20th century, including Peter Fendi, Ferdinand Georg Waldmueller, Josef Danhauser, and Jakob Schindler. Adele Bloch-Bauer died tragically young in 1925 of meningitis. Ferdinand fled Vienna immediately after the occupation of Austria through Germany in March, 1938: first he went to Brezan, Czechoslovakia and then found refuge in Zurich, Switzerland where he survived the war years and died in exile in November, 1945.

AN AUSTRIAN EARLY NEOCLASSIC PORCELAIN MANTEL CLOCK

VIENNA MANUFACTORY, MARKED TWICE WITH THE UNDERGLAZE BLUE FACTORY MARK OF A BEEHIVE AND TWICE WITH THE PAINTER'S MARK OF THREE DOTS, CIRCA 1770

Details

AN AUSTRIAN EARLY NEOCLASSIC PORCELAIN MANTEL CLOCK
Vienna Manufactory, marked twice with the underglaze blue factory mark of a beehive and twice with the painter's mark of three dots, Circa 1770
The white enamelled dial with Arabic and Roman chapter rings and pierced hands signed Chles. Bertrand/A PARIS, behind a glazed door, within a ribbon-tied laurel and berry bezel, within a rectangular case on acanthus-sheathed scrolled feet surmounted by a panelled egg-and-leaf frieze set with a rosette at the center and a bucranium at each corner hung with laurel and berry swags, below a fluted column base with a ribbon-tied oak torus foot, the whole draped with a magenta cloth, the winged and bearded figure of Chronos seated on the left, a putto with an hour glass on the right, and two putti, one with a sun dial, the other with a plomb line on the grassy and rocky base, the back of the clock with trailing branches, on a rectangular base with laurel-filled pierced Vitruvian scroll decorated sides, each corner set with an oval seeded acanthus, on fluted and acanthus-sheathed capital feet, inscribed twice in blue grease pencil Ke. 7814/29.514, and bearing a paper label with the same inscription, the base apparently contemporary (see below)
66½in. (26.5cm.) high, 15¾in. (40cm.) wide, 12¼in. (31cm.) deep

Provenance

The Collection of Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer, either in Schloss Jungfer, Prague, or the Palais on the Schillerplatz, Vienna by 1938.
Purchased by the Museum für Angewändte Künst, Vienna, June 1941. Restituted to the heirs of Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer by the Republic of Austria in November 1999.

Literature

Born, Wolfgang. 'Imperial Vienna Porcelain. The Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer Collection', The Connoisseur March 1936, pp. 130-31, fig. IV.

Sale room notice

Please note the correct height for this piece should read 25½in. (64.8cm.).

Lot Essay

The Viennese Porcelain Factory was founded as a private enterprise in 1718 by Claudius Innocentius Du Paquier, a former official of the Austrian War Council. During its first twenty six years of operation before being sold to the Austrain Government in 1744, the factory produced traditional Austrian baroque and chinoiserie wares. Under the new management of the Minister of Finance, the factory began to succeed, and it was at this time that the underglaze blue factory mark was introduced; given its resemblance to a beehive, the Bindenschild, a shield with bands, the historical Austrian heraldic symbol, earned the wares the name 'beehive porcelain'. W. Born believes that the Bindenschild mark probably "indicates that that the objects so marked were first to be at the disposal of the Imperial Court, and afterwards to be sold." This was certainly one of the marketing techniques used by the new management to at once distinguish the wares from those produced at Meissen and give them the royal cachet that would appeal to aristocratic patrons. Highly sculptural rococo figurative groups became a mainstay of the factory's production and a trademark violet glaze was introduced that was still in use in the rococo/neoclassic transitional period when the present clock was made. This clock is perhaps the most richly-decorated group known to surivive from these years.

In his article W. Born writes, "the socle of gilt bronze was added later in England, where the clock was for a long time in private hands", but this does not appear to be the case.

A similar base in the musée du Louvre used to support a marble sculpture is illustrated in G. Souchal, French 18th Century French Furniture, New York, n.d., p. 98, fig. 70.

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