French Empire mantel clock

A French Empire-style mantel clock is a type of elaborately decorated mantel clock made in France during the Napoleonic Empire between 1804–1814/15, although the timekeepers manufactured throughout the Bourbon Restoration (1814/1815–1830) are also included within this art movement since they share subject, decorative elements, shapes and style.

Already by the end of the 18th century, from the mid-1770s on, the French clocks participated of a new art movement; the Neoclassicism. The predominant style in architecture, painting, sculpture, and the decorative arts, that had come into its own during the last years of Louis XV's life, chiefly as a reaction to the excesses of the Rococo but partly through the popularity of the excavations at ancient Herculaneum and Pompeii, in Italy.

Therefore, the clocks also did without the excessive ornamentation and overelaborate designs of the preceding Rococo style so typical of the Louis XV reign.

The timekeepers manufactured both over the Louis XVI and the French First Republic historical periods incorporated this new artistic language with classical designs, allegories and motifs. In the case of the Louis XVI pieces, stone (usually white marble, alabaster or biscuit) was combined with gilded and/or patinated bronze, although certain cases were completely cast in bronze. Some models were architectural (i.e., with no figures) while others displayed classical-style figurines.

During the 1790s, the production of gilded-bronze considerably increased as working conditions became easier. The freedom of trade initiated by the French Revolution allowed many casters, who during the ancien régime worked in workshops strictly limited to making bronze, to develop large factories. They took advantage of this opportunity to execute all stages of bronze making within one factory and drew, cast, gilded, assembled and sold objects of their own workshops. Artisans still benefited from pre-Revolution training and worked according to the standards of a luxury art from the ancien régime, but they had better means of production and organization.

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