Design for a Clock
Medium
Graphite, pen and black ink, brush and yellow, brown, gray, and blue wash
Dimensions
26 1/8 x 20 3/16 in. (66.3 x 51.2 cm)
Classification
Drawings
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Gift of Raphael Esmerian, 1960
Accession Number
60.692.10
Tags
Art Historical Context
This elegant design for a clock, created by an anonymous French artist between 1770 and 1785, captures the refined decorative spirit of late eighteenth-century France. Rendered in graphite, pen and ink, and delicate washes of yellow, brown, gray, and blue, the drawing likely served as a working proposal for a luxury timepiece intended for an aristocratic interior. The presence of playful putti—cherubic figures often associated with Rococo ornament—suggests a blend of classical motifs with the era’s taste for light, graceful embellishment. Such designs were essential in the collaborative world...
About the Artist
Anonymous, French, 18th century · 1700–1800
The artist known as Anonymous, French, 18th century, represents a collective of unidentified talents active roughly between 1700 and 1800, a period of profound artistic evolution in France from the opulent Rococo to the austere dawn of Neoclassicism and Revolutionary fervor. Little is documented about their personal training or mentors, as their anonymity obscures individual biographies, though th...