The Clock You Might Never Notice
Explore a stunning sculpture that conceals a clever clock within its marble, bronze, and golden details.
Clock and Candelabrum (1781) by After Etienne-Maurice Falconet The Wallace Collection
If you stood in front of this beautiful sculpture, your eyes might be drawn to the gleaming poppies stretching upward...
...or to Cupid leaning over the marble vase.
You may admire its graceful shape and attention to detail, without realising that this is actually a clock.
Clock and Candelabrum (1781) by After Etienne-Maurice Falconet The Wallace Collection
This 18th-century French creation hides function behind decoration. There are no hands or numbers. Instead, time is told by the tongue of a golden serpent wrapped around the neck of the vase; its tongue pointing to small rotating rings. A clever blend of art and engineering.
Beside the vase stands Cupid, the god of love, based on designs by the famous sculptor Étienne-Maurice Falconet (1716-1791). His bronze figure leans toward the vase, wings half open, as if he too is keeping watch over time.
From the top of the vase rise golden poppies that form a candelabrum. Symbolic of nature’s beauty and abundance; themes often celebrated in Rococo art, where flowers and love were used to express joy and elegance.
Standing more than two metres tall, this Clock and Candelabrum
turn timekeeping into decorative delight. Hidden beneath marble and bronze, it invites us to look closer and to find time not in numbers or ticking hands, but in art itself.
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