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Lot Essay
Within David Roentgen’s well documented oeuvre, richly decorated clocks with complex mechanisms by Peter Kinzing stand out and were prized as modern timepieces in imposing ‘antique’ forms. This elegant example, shaped as a fluted obelisk and veneered with thuya, is part of a small group of longcase clocks of this slender form, executed from the early 1780s and particularly favoured in Russia. One example was acquired by Catherine the Great, a great admirer of Roentgen’s work, and is still at Pavlovsk palace. The dial and movement is Roentgen and Kinzing's evolution of the type developed by the American polymath Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790).
The clock is a superb example of Roentgen's combination of the most modern and avant-garde stylistic developments with craftsmanship of ingenious technical complexity. This model demonstrates the growing influence of the aesthetic grammar of ancient Egypt that was to climax after Napoleon’s 1796 campaign in Egypt. Though earlier clock cases by Roentgen were indebted to English trends, his models from 1780 until the end of the decade were almost exclusively decorated with a more severe neo-classical restraint. The sophisticated avant-garde design of this clock sets it aside from the earlier models and the obelisk-shaped corpus with its trapezium outlines following the swing of the pendulum is decorated only with discreet ormolu beading, accentuating the burr panelling of the case. The geometric ormolu mask around the dial and triangular pediment recalls the gold-plated apexes of ancient Egyptian obelisks while the fluted door and finials speak to the symbolism of ancient Rome and Greece. An almost identical clock (with plain rather than a brass plinth) is currently preserved in the Palace of Pavlovsk and is evidence of Roentgen's extensive deliveries to the Russian court (illustrated in D. Fabian, op. cit., 1996, pp. 210-16, cat.421-32.).
Other closely related clocks include one in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (inv. 2015.504a–d and previously sold Auktionshaus Demessieur, Düsseldorf, 27 June 2015, €501,000) which has three finials on its crest instead of the triangular pediment and one in the Kunstgewerbemuseum in Cologne, originally from the collections of Prince Georg von Sachsen-Meiningen-Römhild with a slightly wider body and a glazed door. A further clock of identical obelisk shape by Roentgen and Kinzing was sold anonymously, Sotheby's New York, 1 November 1997, lot 264 ($310,500). The continuing prestige and widespread allure of Roentgen’s neo-classical output like the present example is further demonstrated by a series of desks mounted with similar mille-raie mounts and roundels, including one in the Royal Collection at Buckingham Palace, one at the chateau de Versailles and one sold Hubert de Givenchy, Christie’s, Paris, 14 June 2022, lot 14 (€2,142,000).
The Roentgen workshop was founded in 1742 in Herrnhaag, Wetterau, by David's father Abraham (1711-1793) who had been apprentice in The Hague, Rotterdam, Amsterdam and London. Moving to Neuwied in 1750, the workshop supplied furniture to a number of illustrious clients, including Fürst Alexander zu Wied (1738-1791) and the Archbishop and Elector of Trier, Johann Philipp von Walderdorff (1701-1768). David Roentgen took control of the workshop in 1772 and oversaw its development into a truly pan-European enterprise commanding the attention of Royal and princely courts across Europe. Roentgen travelled to Paris in 1774 to familiarise himself with neoclassicism, the newest fashion in the European capital of taste and one which he began to introduce to his furniture from the end of the 1770s, including a desk presented to Marie-Antoinette in 1774. Buoyed by his reputation, Roentgen established a workshop on the rue de Grenelle in Paris from 1781 and developed a solid network in the city.
Peter IV Kinzing (1745-1816) was born to a dynasty of clockmakers in Neuwied and married the daughter of the clockmaker Herman Achenbach, partly collaborating with his father-in-law until he took over his workshop in 1772. From 1755, the independent Kinzing workshop was already producing clocks together with the Roentgens (Fabian, op. cit., 1992, p. 44). Almost all of David Roentgen's important clocks were made in collaboration with Kinzing, who also supplied Roentgen with other sophisticated mechanical works, including table pianos. In 1785 Marie-Antoinette purchased a clock from Roentgen and Kinzing for presentation to the Academy of Science and Roentgen was named Ébéniste mécanicien du Roi et de la Reine while Kinzing was named Horloger de la Reine.
The Influence of Benjamin Franklin
The ‘Franklin’ dial and movement is Roentgen and Kinzing's evolution of the type developed by the American polymath Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) whom they may well have met in Paris where Roentgen had a branch until 1785. Whereas Franklin’s interest in this type of movement was how to produce a clock in an efficient manner for the emerging North American market the clocks produced by Roentgen and Kinzing were aimed at a sophisticated European market. The clocks made in the Neuwied workshops echoed French and English innovations of the period by having not only maintaining power through use of the endless rope, a pinwheel escapement and a compensating pendulum but in this instance the ingenious hand mechanism (which may have been a development of a forerunner by the fellow German clockmaker Anton Roetig). The ‘Three-wheel’ clocks and their history are further discussed by Ian D. Fowler and Eugen Denkel, Franklin Clocks made in Neuwied, (https://www.historische-zeitmesser.de/fachartikel/three_wheel.html, accessed May 2024).
The clock is a superb example of Roentgen's combination of the most modern and avant-garde stylistic developments with craftsmanship of ingenious technical complexity. This model demonstrates the growing influence of the aesthetic grammar of ancient Egypt that was to climax after Napoleon’s 1796 campaign in Egypt. Though earlier clock cases by Roentgen were indebted to English trends, his models from 1780 until the end of the decade were almost exclusively decorated with a more severe neo-classical restraint. The sophisticated avant-garde design of this clock sets it aside from the earlier models and the obelisk-shaped corpus with its trapezium outlines following the swing of the pendulum is decorated only with discreet ormolu beading, accentuating the burr panelling of the case. The geometric ormolu mask around the dial and triangular pediment recalls the gold-plated apexes of ancient Egyptian obelisks while the fluted door and finials speak to the symbolism of ancient Rome and Greece. An almost identical clock (with plain rather than a brass plinth) is currently preserved in the Palace of Pavlovsk and is evidence of Roentgen's extensive deliveries to the Russian court (illustrated in D. Fabian, op. cit., 1996, pp. 210-16, cat.421-32.).
Other closely related clocks include one in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (inv. 2015.504a–d and previously sold Auktionshaus Demessieur, Düsseldorf, 27 June 2015, €501,000) which has three finials on its crest instead of the triangular pediment and one in the Kunstgewerbemuseum in Cologne, originally from the collections of Prince Georg von Sachsen-Meiningen-Römhild with a slightly wider body and a glazed door. A further clock of identical obelisk shape by Roentgen and Kinzing was sold anonymously, Sotheby's New York, 1 November 1997, lot 264 ($310,500). The continuing prestige and widespread allure of Roentgen’s neo-classical output like the present example is further demonstrated by a series of desks mounted with similar mille-raie mounts and roundels, including one in the Royal Collection at Buckingham Palace, one at the chateau de Versailles and one sold Hubert de Givenchy, Christie’s, Paris, 14 June 2022, lot 14 (€2,142,000).
The Roentgen workshop was founded in 1742 in Herrnhaag, Wetterau, by David's father Abraham (1711-1793) who had been apprentice in The Hague, Rotterdam, Amsterdam and London. Moving to Neuwied in 1750, the workshop supplied furniture to a number of illustrious clients, including Fürst Alexander zu Wied (1738-1791) and the Archbishop and Elector of Trier, Johann Philipp von Walderdorff (1701-1768). David Roentgen took control of the workshop in 1772 and oversaw its development into a truly pan-European enterprise commanding the attention of Royal and princely courts across Europe. Roentgen travelled to Paris in 1774 to familiarise himself with neoclassicism, the newest fashion in the European capital of taste and one which he began to introduce to his furniture from the end of the 1770s, including a desk presented to Marie-Antoinette in 1774. Buoyed by his reputation, Roentgen established a workshop on the rue de Grenelle in Paris from 1781 and developed a solid network in the city.
Peter IV Kinzing (1745-1816) was born to a dynasty of clockmakers in Neuwied and married the daughter of the clockmaker Herman Achenbach, partly collaborating with his father-in-law until he took over his workshop in 1772. From 1755, the independent Kinzing workshop was already producing clocks together with the Roentgens (Fabian, op. cit., 1992, p. 44). Almost all of David Roentgen's important clocks were made in collaboration with Kinzing, who also supplied Roentgen with other sophisticated mechanical works, including table pianos. In 1785 Marie-Antoinette purchased a clock from Roentgen and Kinzing for presentation to the Academy of Science and Roentgen was named Ébéniste mécanicien du Roi et de la Reine while Kinzing was named Horloger de la Reine.
The Influence of Benjamin Franklin
The ‘Franklin’ dial and movement is Roentgen and Kinzing's evolution of the type developed by the American polymath Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) whom they may well have met in Paris where Roentgen had a branch until 1785. Whereas Franklin’s interest in this type of movement was how to produce a clock in an efficient manner for the emerging North American market the clocks produced by Roentgen and Kinzing were aimed at a sophisticated European market. The clocks made in the Neuwied workshops echoed French and English innovations of the period by having not only maintaining power through use of the endless rope, a pinwheel escapement and a compensating pendulum but in this instance the ingenious hand mechanism (which may have been a development of a forerunner by the fellow German clockmaker Anton Roetig). The ‘Three-wheel’ clocks and their history are further discussed by Ian D. Fowler and Eugen Denkel, Franklin Clocks made in Neuwied, (https://www.historische-zeitmesser.de/fachartikel/three_wheel.html, accessed May 2024).