Tomb of King Louis XII of France and Queen Anne of Brittany. Basilica of Saint Denis. At the bottom of the watch is engraved the name of the manufacturer of the watch mechanism “LE ROY ET FILS”. It was a well-known French watch company founded in the 18th century and supplying watches to Napoleon I. In the middle of the 19th century, it had a London branch and almost immediately the company received the status of a supplier to the English royal court from Queen Victoria.
Over 30 iconographic and heraldic symbols and messages in Latin were encoded in his small table clock by the talented French jeweler Lucien Falise.
Lucien Falise was the son of the founder of the Falize jewelry company, Alexis Falise. From the age of 17 he studied jewelry with his father and from 1871 became first a full partner, and in 1876 the head of a jewelry house. Lucien fully shared his father’s love for enamel and interest in past eras and created many impressive jewelry and decorative and applied works in the Neo-Gothic, Neo-Renaissance, etc. styles.
Sketches of these figures were created by Faliz but they were made by a little known sculptor Leon Shedeville. Lucien Falise.
One of Lucien Falise’s most impressive creations is a table clock with a calendar, created by him in 1881 for the English collector Alfred Morrison, son of the famous textile magnate James Morrison.
Despite the fact that the watch was designed for an Englishman living in an English Gothic estate in a country where the Gothic style had its recognizable features, Falize chose to make watches in the late French Gothic style, inspired both by the real Gothic towers of the cathedrals of France and the famous French astronomical hours. So, for example, the astronomical clock from the Beauvais Cathedral, created in 1865 1868 by Auguste Lucien Verit, could inspire Falise to generously saturate his product with symbolic elements. In the grandiose watch Verita there were 52 dials and several dozen heroes in the scenes of the Earthly City and the Heavenly City.
The fourth relief is dedicated to the owner of the watch, Alfred Morrison. It also shows the collector’s initials on the right and left, and a huge grasshopper in the center. Beneath the coat of arms is the motto of the Morrison family, “Praetio prudentia praestat” – “Prudence brings reward”.The relief on the left side is dedicated to Pope Julius II as indicated by the initials and coat of arms under the papal tiara and keys.
But unlike all cathedral clocks, Falise devoted his own not to the biblical theme, but turned it into a kind of anthology of late Gothic iconographic and heraldic symbols.
The Morrison family owned the watch until 1938. That year they were sold by Alfred’s grandson John Granville Morrison. Then the watch came to America and was put up for sale there several times. In 1991, Ms. Wrightsman bought the Faliza table clock and donated it to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Today, the watch is part of the permanent exhibition and is one of the masterpieces of the French applied art collection of the 19th century.
Hand met lauriertak en doornentakken. Bergtoren in het licht anonymous after Aegidius Sadeler II 1666.Claude Paradine. Devises heroiques 1557.On the right side of the clock is a relief dedicated to King Henry VIII of England.The plaque on the front side of the watch is dedicated to King Louis XII of France and his wife Queen Anne of Brittany. To the right and left are the initials of the rulers, and in the center between them is the heraldic symbol of the king – a porcupine.On the reverse side of the clock there are two last inserts with allegories of Labor (LABOR) and Law (LEX).On the left side of the watch are allegories of the three key Christian virtues – Mercy (CARITAS), Hope (SPES) and Faith (FIDES).Lucien Faliz. Table clock with calendar. 1881. Metropolitan Museum of Art. 2Allegory of Wisdom SAPIENTIA.On the right side in the lower part there are allegories of Freedom (LIBERATIO) and Research (INVESTIGATIO).At the top we see a ribbon going in a circle, on which the days of the week are written. In the center of the dial, the master placed the emblem of the watch manufacturer “Bapst et Falize”, as the joint jewelry company of Lucien Falize and Germain Bapst was then called.The dial of the watch, created using the techniques of cloisonne and painted enamel, is also covered with floral ornaments.All the key late Gothic architectural elements can be found in the sculptural decoration of this clock: the traditional lancet arch and the flatter Tudor arch, pinnacles, massworks, crabbs, cruciferous flowers, phials, classic Gothic capitals with floral motifs, and even decorative gargoyles in the form of hybrid monsters with bird wings and a tail. fish.Auguste Lucien Believe. Astronomical clock of the cathedral in Beauvais. 1865 1868.Fonthill Abbey. 1796 1813.Lucien Faliz. Table clock with calendar..Table clock with calendar. 1881.Lucien Faliz. Table clock with calendar. 1881.Lucien Faliz. Table clock with calendar. 1881. Metropolitan Museum of Art.
