Important Pendulum Attributed To Antoine Ravrio - Empire Period

Important clock attributed to Antoine RAVRIO representing "Anacreon inspired by Love" in chiseled and gilded bronze, the Greek poet is seated on an entablature revealing a dial with Roman numerals under a guilloché background, love at his side adjoining a horn abundance, all resting on a rectangular base representing a bas-relief supported by four grid feet. Wire movement. Empire period. Dimensions: 65 x 60 x 21 cm Biography: André-Antoine Ravrio (1759 / 1814), great rival of Pierre-Philippe Thomire, whose productions are often associated with movements by the watchmaker Mesnil. Received master foundry in 1777, he set up on his own in 1790, before becoming one of the official suppliers of bronze furnishings for Napoleon I. Let us point out for the record that this extraordinary bronzier was also a highly prized poet and singer... History: ANACREON OF TEOS (560-478 BC) Driven out of his native town, Teos, in Ionia (Asia Minor), by the invasions Persians, Anacreon takes refuge in Samos, at the court of the tyrant Polycrates, then he is welcomed by Hipparchus, tyrant of Athens, who would have sent for him by a galley with fifty rowers. However, he would have returned to die, very old, in his homeland. The Alexandrian poets knew of him five books of poetry, including elegies, iambes and especially light odes of which he fixed the type. All that remains of this work today are fragments, as well as nineteen epigrams. Essentially a court poet, Anacreon first sings of love and joie de vivre. He is graceful, mocking and sometimes also, with a more personal accent, melancholic with the regret of growing old. The sixty little poems called anacreontics are imitations of the Alexandrian period.