Mantel clock

The clock is the work of the Warsaw clockmaker, whose ancestors came from Vienna and set up a workshop in Warsaw. For many years they provided the Potocki family with services connected with repairing clocks in the palaces of Warsaw and Wilanów. The mechanism by Michał Krantz, enclosed in a round case, has a separate spring drive for the clock and calendar, and a separate one for the Viennese-type hour and half-hour mechanism, from a single silver bell, as well as a hook and pinwheel regulator. It uses a light, long pendulum on a thread pendant. The round white enamelled dial of the mechanism with three brass hands marked the minutes, quarter hours, hours and days of the month. In 1788 M. Krantz made this type of minute clock showing calendar days as one of his masterpieces.

The case has a symbolic message. On a round marble base supported on four low legs, decorated with gilded beading, there is a central figure of a seated mermaid supporting in her raised hands a clockwork mechanism with a round dial. The whole is crowned with a decorative pinnacle. In Poland, especially in Warsaw, the figure of the Mermaid is commonly associated with the capital’s coat of arms. The change of the golden colour of the bronze figure’s body to black, as well as the surrounding chained pillars, is interpreted as a gesture demonstrating national mourning after the partitions of Poland.

AK