Gilded Splendor The pendules au Bon Sauvage & au Noir Enchaîné Iconography of the pendules au Noir in the Parnassia Collection Alette Fleischer and Bart Krieger
Gilded Splendor LM Intellectualwww.LMPublishers.nlinfo@LMPublishers.nlThe1135VoorhavenPublishers129BPEdamNetherlandsownership: Alette Fleischer and Bart Krieger Editor: Jessica Lipowski and Lauren Talley Cover: The Kissing Couple, naked, ormolu and patination, Paris, 1799-1805 Pendulum clocks of the Parnassia Collection photographed by ® R. Gerritsen Picture 4 by the owner of Parnassia Collection Portrait of the authors by ® Taco D. Smit. Location: Arti et Amicitiae, Amsterdam Graphic design: Ad van Helmond Production: High Trade bv Edition 500 ISBN 978-94-6022-990-9
Contents 1 Preface 5 2 Introduction 9 3 Essay 13 I Tour of the Parnassia Collection 15 Paul and Virginie on a palanquin II The French Empire and the Code Noir 17 The huntress on a palanquin or the Black Diana III How it all began 22 America and Africa IV New narratives and iconography for a new nation 31 Paul and Virginie with Domingue Paul and Virginie Paul and Virginie with elephants V Pendules au Noir Enchaîné 36 a. Liberté, égalité, fraternité, but not for all The Porter with a sack of coffee beans The Porter with a wicker container Smoking Sailor
b. Haiti strikes back c. The backbone of the slave-based plantation industry La Nourrice Africaine d. Articulating the Black voice and Black resistance e. Sugarcoating bitter history Allegory of the French Colonies The Kissing Couple (naked) The Kissing Couple (feathered) Le jardinier VI Pendules au Bon Noir 59 Drinking Boy Atala liberating Chactas Robinson Crusoe with Friday Kneeling Hunter (inkwell) VII Cultivated versus natural order 68 Hunter cultivated order (boat) Hunter natural order (carriage) VIII Conclusion 72 Overview iconographic categories 76 Glossary 91 Perception of the pendules au Noir today 93 Recommendations 95 Bibliography 97 Recognitions 103 The authors 104
I was pleased when asked to write the preface for this in-depth study of the pendules au Noir by the art historian duo Alette Fleischer and Bart Krieger. I am an ardent collector of so-called Negrophilia: imagery of Black and indiginous peoples throughout the centuries, all created from a white perspective. In fact, I acquired one of the Empire pendulum clocks discussed in this cahier (Picture 11. The Porter with a sack of coffee beans). This collection, named 1 Felix de Rooy, Ego Documenta, The Testament of My Ego in the Museum of My Mind, KIT Publishers, Amsterdam, 2013.
Felix de Rooy, curator, artist and art critic
With this part of a poem, I introduced myself in my book Ego Documenta, The Testament of My Ego in the Museum of My Mind (2013), which covered my whole oeuvre.1 My book can be seen as my legacy as a painter, sculptor, curator, director, actor, poet, and art critic. The poem has everything to do with the topic of this cahier, which deals with transatlantic slavery, inequality, prejudice, and racism. However, for me it is also about “black splendor”: the beauty and aesthetics of Black people and the Black body in particular.
5 1
Preface: Honi soit qui mal y pense
“In my bloodstream collide Amazon Indians, Africans enslaved, slave masters and abolisionists from the Netherlands, Germany, France and persecuted Jews from Portugal. My spirit has traveled beyond battlefields of racial and cultural confrontation. Molded by generations of male sperm invading female egg cells, I was fertilized, nurtured, full grown, squeezed, pushed out and given birth to a fresh nomad in no man’s land.”
For instance, in the tantalizing pendulum clock of the nude Kissing Couple (Picture 23), I detect that same fascination. For this clock in particular, I feel oppression is not the main takeaway. The composition is very pleasing, and I enjoy the depicted exotic erotica and the elegant, acrobatic flexibility of Black bodies. The message, I feel, is of universal love; sex is accessible to everyone around the world. In my view, this clock depicts Negrophilia in its purest form. Literally translated, Negrophilia means “love for Black people.”
2 Old Norman French spoken by the medieval ruling class in England, meaning “shamed be whoever thinks ill of it.” It is the motto of the British chivalric Order of the Garter, the highest of all British knighthoods.
Collection6
Negrophilia, traveled through parts of Europe in several shapes, as an exhibition and as an educational poster specifically developed for schools. These French pendulum clocks are wonderfully fascinating. I am drawn to them because there is a certain recognition; in some manner, the depicted figures resemble me as a Black man of mixed race. Of course on the one hand these objects illustrate white supremacy, repression and inequality, as Fleischer and Krieger’s iconographical research points out. They show how Blacks are mainly depicted in a submissive and dependent way; this genre they label the Noir Enchaîné pendulum clocks.
On the other hand, these clocks show a huge appreciation for the beauty of the Black body at that time. I see this along the lines of ‘’Honi soit qui mal y pense,” 2 which means, “shame on anyone who thinks evil of it.” In short, we should see the positive aspects and the overall beauty of the clocks. This imagery is in sharp contrast when comparing it, for instance, with the black memorabilia of 19th century America. The “Black Americana” objects (figurines, tobacco jars, cartoons, etc.) that were immensly popular after the abolition of slavery were not only sterotypical, they were merely created to insult, ridicule and put down Blacks in every way possible. The cause of this could be in part due to the fact that slavery and Black people were visably exploited in all levels of New World society. For France, the colonies were far away, a place to fantasize about like a tropical transatlantic dream.
3 In my view, it is of the utmost importance that objects that touch the topic of race and inequality in general, and these pendules au Bon Noir in particular, should be cherished and preserved for future generations. They tell us something about accidental and deliberate white supremacy during those times. In fact, these clocks are witnesses of the 18th and beginning of the 19th century French Empire. We can learn a lot more from them: this is just the beginning!
the hunters, one on a boat and the other on a carriage, are quite spectacular (Pictures 32 and 33). I would not mind having one of these clocks in my own home. I feel both clocks are a homage to Africa. The combination of the patinated bronze and the gilded ornaments is joyfully dazzling. I never realized there were so many models of black clocks. The different genres of the pendules au Noir discovered by Fleischer and Krieger make this study a true eye opener. Their fi ndings are a great foundation and demonstrate the need for further research on this fascinating topic.
In 2015, I donated the Collection Negrophilia (including the pendule au Bon Sauvage) in its entirety to the Wereldmuseum Rotterdam (World Museum in Rotterdam) for educational purposes.
Wereldmuseum Rotterdam is now connected with the Tropenmuseum (Amsterdam), Afrika Museum (Berg en Dal) and Museum Volkenkunde (Leiden).
3
Additionally,7
FullIntroduction:accesstothe private Parnassia Collection
The fi rst time we were introduced to the private Parnassia Collection, we were in total and complete awe. Neither one of us have ever seen that many Empire pendulum clocks on display. Each one was more beautiful and opulent than the next. The more than 150 pendulum clocks differ in the stories that they tell, as well as size and shape. All of them are in working order, fully restored and of exquisite museum quality. The black clocks (the pendules au Noir) 4 have been collected over a span of some 30 years, and this collection is considered one of the most important private collections of Empire pendulum clocks in the world.
4 To this day, these clocks are referred to as pendules au [n-word] in auctions, etc. In this essay we advocate alternatives like pendules au (Bon) Noir. We do not repeat the n-word. Please see the glossary.
9 2
The collection of black clocks started with the acquisition of a so-called Africa clock (see Picture 3) and is still growing, as every year one or two more showpieces are added to this mind-blowing collection. This means that the
In the winter of 2021, we were asked if we would be interested in writing an essay on the black pendulum clocks that form part of the Parnassia Collection. These clocks are known as the pendules au Bon Sauvage. We were delighted and immediately said yes. We are both familiar with this type of clock because of our art historian backgrounds, our interest in the representation of “the other” and our intercultural approach of fi ne and applied arts and history. Both of us have a Dutch/colonial background. Alette Fleischer has roots in Indonesia (the East Indies) and Bart Krieger has Afro-Surinamese roots (the West Indies). In both cases this organically translated into an internal search of our own identity and a professional interest in the decolonization of art and history.
collection10 is almost complete, as the number of French Empire pendules au Noir models is limited. In some cases, the designer or the maker of the clock is known. In a few cases, even the whereabouts of other copies of a particular model is also known (i.e. in a public or private collection). However, one rarely knows the provenance of the clocks: who initially commissioned or bought these?Wewere granted exclusive access to the entire collection and were able to study the clocks in situ, for which we are immensely grateful. The collector, who chooses to remain anonymous, sought contextualization for his collection of black clocks and offered us a unique chance to iconographically dissect the clocks fi rsthand and in detail. It also gave us the opportunity to examine all aspects of these precious objects. We even heard them chime on request. From the beginning it was clear to us that the imagery displayed by the so-called pendules au Bon Sauvage of the Parnassia Collection is problematic and does not fit in the Black Lives Matter (BLM) era we live in today.
5 Black Lives Matter (BLM) is a decentralized political and social movement that seeks to highlight racism, discrimination and inequality experienced by Black people. When its supporters come together, they do so primarily to protest incidents of police brutality and racially-motivated violence against Black people.
5 Here is where our work as (art) historians begins. With this essay, we aim to contextualize these black clocks in the timeframe they were created in and displayed (ca 1790-1830), and we contextualize them in present time and ask ourselves this central question: are we, as an emancipated society, able and/or allowed to enjoy these pendulum clocks today? Our research sent us back in time to 18th century France, where the people of France were fighting for freedom, equality and their livelihood. Interestingly enough, this quest for equality did not include Black people, albeit there was some awareness regarding equal rights for colored people.6 Our objective was to reframe shared histories of non-whites (indigenous Americans and Africans) and Europeans in order to unlock the colonial (hidden) narratives the pendulum clocks display.
6 Although some Black people were more privileged than others and took part in the colonial slavery system, Black people as a whole were not considered to be eligible for equality.
We conclude this essay with some recommendations and a proposal for a new categorization of the pendule au Bon Sauvage: one that does justice to the layered, shared history of Whites, Blacks and everything in between, and one that honors and validates the variety of designs we found housed within the Parnassia Collection.
David Graeber and David Wengrow, The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity, Allen Lane, London, 2021.
There11 is also a striking blind spot. The Black voice and Black resistance is mostly absent from this discourse. Very helpful is the 2021 publication The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity, by David Graeber and David Wengrow.7 This amazing must-read book will spin your worldview 180 degrees. In this book the authors convincingly argue that Enlightenment philosophers, such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau, in part based their ideas on the ancient life philosophy of indigenous peoples in North America and quoted some of them from original 17th century sources. We made sure to cite Black sources like this in our essay.
To further balance the Eurocentric gaze and origins of all this gilded splendor, we installed a focus group of advisors with backgrounds in the international art and antiques trade, activism, afro-culture advocatism, philosophy, spirituality, and museum practice. They gave us advice, feedback, leads to (Black) source material, etc., during the six months it took to complete our research and write this essay.
We also felt the need to briefly interview about 30 of our peers (Black, White and everything in between). We wanted to know if this group is familiar with these clocks and what sentiments, feelings or thoughts they instigate or provoke today. A separate overview is attached at the end of the essay. In addition to conducting a literature review, we were able to get up close and personal with the clocks of the Parnassia Collection, as previously mentioned. This led to a couple of discoveries and the development of an iconographic method to “read” these empire clocks and decipher the meaning and their often hidden messages.
7
8 We merely aim to provide interpretations of those terms. It is not our intention to lay down the law. See the glossary attached.
Furthermore,12 we drew up a list of defi nitions. We explain the current meanings of words like Creole, Amerindian, the N-word, sauvage, and Blackamoor. We highlight terminology used in the 18th and 19th centuries until now, discussing words that have been polluted and scrutinized over time. Certain terms have different meanings for different people and can be perceived as racist and derogatory.8
Alette Fleischer (PhD) and Bart Krieger (M.A.)
13 3 Essay Gilded Splendor The pendules au Bon Sauvage & au Noir Enchaîné Iconography of the pendules au Noir in the Parnassia Collection Alette Fleischer and Bart Krieger
Picture14 1. Paul and Virginie on a palanquin Picture 1 • Paul and Virginie on a palanquin, ormolu and patination, Paris 1806
Everything on the pendulum clock has meaning and contributes to the main protagonist and the intrinsic message. Much like 17th century Dutch and Flemish genre paintings, where nothing is coincidental, everything in these
15 I • Tour of the Parnassia Collection
• Know how to read them. Methodology
In order to decipher the messaging on the black clocks in the Parnassia Collection, we should:
• Know how to interpret the iconography (total sum or synergy of images and symbols on these clocks).
• Know who made them, as well as who bought them. Provenance
Have you ever seen a French Empire gilded pendulum clock like this before?
• Identify the type of historic sources upon which they are based (written sources, pictorial languages or even oral history). Historiography and Contextualization
The clock featured in Picture 1 is one of the many clocks that belong to the elaborate Parnassia Collection. There is a lot going on, and it may be difficult to digest all at once. Let us break it down and describe what we see and then subsequently dissect this iconographical 18th century puzzle. On this clock we see four figures: two men lifting a palanquin with bamboo rods while a girl and a boy sit on top. The palanquin is partially covered with a drape. The latter two figures seem, in comparison to the men, smaller in stature. A banner-like shawl is catching the wind above their heads. A dog follows alongside the man facing the dial. With his paw, the dog seems to show them the way. The two muscular carriers are barefoot and wear nothing more than a textile skirt. The boy and girl are also barefoot, yet they are dressed in a neoclassical style; he wears a short toga, and she has on a skin-tight dress. The corners of the plinth are decorated with palm trees. In the frieze, judging from their features, we see three Black male figures, a white girl, a boy, and a dog. The scene is set in what appears to be an exotic environment. Behind the girl there is a rock formation. On the right we can see a stone building and in the far distance a ship at sea. How should we process this information? Without any (art) historical knowledge or context you could easily assume that the girl and boy are being carried by their servants or (transatlantic) slaves. But are they?
9 For more on Deverberie: http://www.antique-horology.org/deverberie/
These objects were created by designers like the well-known bronzier Jean-Simon Deverbrie (1764-1824) and then translated in ormolu.9 Bronziers, together with chiselers, designed and created objects like clocks and inkwells and adorned them with the separate molded ornaments. Watchmakers supplied the timepieces for the clock cases. With this in mind, a (Black) historic, mythological or fictitious figure can only be iconographically identified if several symbols on different levels of the clock (main group, frieze and sides) support that idea or notion.
Additional insight could have been gleaned if we were able to research the provenance of the individual clocks, for instance by studying inventory lists of the rich and famous in Paris and Bordeaux in the last quarter of the 18th century.10 Further research on the owners of these clocks and their influence or business interests in the French Caribbean, Mauritius, or the sugar, coffee or tobacco trade would show the connection of these clocks with the mores of those times.11 We opted not to explore this aspect further, as the process would be too time consuming considering the timeline we were allocated to complete our research. Every pendulum clock model, like other applied art objects, was produced in a series, either a larger series or more limited edition. Compared to a unique object like a painting or a sculpture, it is more difficult to follow the ownership trail and to establish provenance for applied art objects like pendulum clocks. Both specialist art dealers as well as the owner of the Parnassia Collection confi rmed the complexity of determining the provenance. It was crucial for us to study the clocks in situ. While discussing and observing, we identified different groups within the pendules au Noir of the Parnassia Collection. Dissecting these individual clocks brings us back to the Golden Age of France, the great philosophers of the Enlightenment, Romanticism, the Revolution, Black resistance, and the world famous Napoleon Bonaparte, providing historical context .
10 In the 18th and 19th centuries, the harbor city of Bordeaux was fully involved in the transatlantic slave trade.
11 See glossary for the meaning of mores.
genre16 paintings is deliberate and has meaning. This is also the case with the pendule au Noir.
The fi rst category consists of the black personifications like Africa and America, while the second group encompasses clocks au Bon Noir that are mostly based on contemporary novels and/or depict men and women in relaxed, natural poses. The third group allows us to focus on slavery and life on the plantations. For an outline and categorization of the 23 pendulum clocks and one inkwell from the Parnassia Collection we selected for this essay, see the overview on page 76 and 77. II • The French Empire and the Code Noir
B. Le pendule au Bon Noir (Black people living carefree in the natural order of pristine nature/Arcadia)
C. Le pendule au Noir Enchaîné (enslaved Black people mostly involved in manual labor)
13 Graeber and Wengrow, op.cit. note 7.
The French began colonizing the Americas from the 1550s onwards: fi rst in Canada and Louisiana (now part of the USA). It was in these lands that the French fi rst came into contact with indiginous peoples and were introduced to the smoking of tobacco and homemade beverages containing caffeine, argue David Graeber (anthropologist) and David Wengrow (archaeologist) in their book The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity.13 The French enjoyed these new flavors so much that in a way this was one of the triggers for the colonization of North and South America. “Slavery is the outcome of argiculture and farming,” Wengrow regularly states in talks about this 12 This essay focuses solely on the pendules au Noir of the Parnassia Collection.
A. Le pendule au Noir Personnifié (allegories, ideologies, continents, colonies, or countries, depicted as persons)
This17 essay can be seen as a tour through the Parnassia Collection.12 In the process of discussing different clocks and groups of clocks, we address the history of the pendulum clock itself, as well as the history of the terminology and nomenclature of the pendule au Noir. Below is our categorization of these particular types:
14 Two weeks before the publication of The Dawn of Everything, David Graeber died.
15 Code Noir, ou recueil d’édits, déclarations et arrets concernant les esclaves nègres de l’Amérique, avec un recueil de réglemens, concernant la police des isles françoises de l’Amérique et les Engagés, Paris, 1658. Although subsequent decrees modified some of its provisions, most of the Code Noir remained in place until 1848.
In 1685, the French Prime Minister under King Louis XIV, Jean-Baptist Colbert (1619-1683), drew up the Code Noir. This publication laid out the laws, rules and regulations regarding the management of enslaved people on plantations. Some of the rules were, for instance, that a master had to feed and clothe a slave, even if s/he is sick or old; that enslaved Africans from different masters were not allowed to congregate; that when harboring a fugitive slave, a free person would be fi ned; that masters were allowed to chain and beat slaves but not to torture or mutilate them.15
bestseller18 he and Graeber worked on for 10 years.14
Picture 2 • Code noir ou recueil d’édits, déclarations et arrêts concernant les esclaves nègres de l’Amérique, 1743 (fi rst version 1685), public domain
From the 1620s, France continued to expand its empire to Louisiana, French Guiana, and the food producing islands in the Caribbean region, as well as Senegal in Africa and three islands located in the Indian Ocean, Réunion, Mauritius and the Seychelles. In 1789, the Caribbean colonies, such as SaintDomingue (since their independence in 1804 known as the Republic of Haiti) and Martinique produced bulk sugar, indigo, coffee, tobacco, and cotton. The colonies could yield huge volumes because of the enormous amount of free labor: enslaved men and women trafficked from the African continent.
The guidelines of the Code Noir were often ignored by plantation owners who used excessive and repetitive violence against their enslaved laborers. The cruelties of plantation life have been well documented; even in the realm
17 Marlene L. Daut, “Teaching Perspective: The Relation between the Haitian and French Revolutions,” in: Julia V. Douthwaite, Catriona Seth and Antoinette Sol (eds), Teaching Representations of the French Revolution, MLA Option for Teaching Series, New York, 2019, pp. 264274; Michel-Rolph Trouillot, Silencing the Past. Power and the Production of History, Beacon Press, London, 1995, p. 70-107.
19 of philosophy we fi nd records of the horrors of the transatlantic slave trade.
ideas and inspired by the American Bill of Rights, the French National Assembly presented the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen on August 26, 1789. The fi rst article reads: “Human Beings are born and remain free and equal in rights.” Copies of the Declaration were sent to all corners of the French empire, including overseas colonies. In the colonies, equality and freedom for all humans, as the Declaration articulated, should in theory have included the free and the enslaved, colored and Black.
16 Voltaire, Candide, ou l’optimisme, Gabriel Cramer, Geneva, 1759. In Suriname Voltaire’s Candide fi nds a dismembered African slave in a ditch. For similar accounts, see also: Cynthia Mc Leod, Hoe duur was de suiker?, Vaco, Paramaribo, 1987.
For instance, as documented in Voltaire’s masterpiece Candide, ou l’optimisme published in 1759, Candide witnesses the horrors of slavery fi rst hand while visiting the Dutch colony Suriname; he stumbles upon a dismembered African slave laying in a ditch. The man had lost his hand on a sugar plantation. On occasion, a hand may be caught by the machine as one feeds sugar canes into the shredder. Rather than stop the machine and delay the process, the hand or arm is cut off.16 This is just one of many accounts sharing the atrocities that took place on plantations. Interestingly enough Voltaire’s Candide also visits El Dorado, the mythical city of Gold.
Authors like Abbé Raynal (1713-1796) together with philosopher Denis Diderot (1713-1784) voiced their anti-slavery sentiments in L’Histoire des deux Indes, published in 1770.17 Theoretically, Raynal and Diderot argued, primitive humans could be educated under the guidance of whites. With this train of thought, Blacks were not yet or might never be ready to be free. In 1788, the newly formed Société des Amis des Noirs was primarily focused on the abolition of slave trade and to propagate the correct way to treat slaves. The idea of individual liberty made the voice of abolitionism grew stronger: was slavery just? Should it be abolished? How should we respond to the revolts of the enslaved people? Some philosophers opposed slavery, but none of them opposedFueledracism.byEnlightenment
19 On slavery: Myriam Cottias, Elisabeth Cunin and Antonio de Almeida Mendes, Les traites et les esclavages: perspectives historiques et contemporaines, Karthala, Paris, 2010. On French colonies: Susan H. Libby, “The color of Frenchness: racial identity and visuality in French anti-slavery imagery, 1788-1794,” in: Adrienne Childs and Susan Libby (eds), Blacks and Blackness in European Art of the Long Nineteenth Century, Ashgate Publishing, Farnham/Burlington, 2014, pp. 19-45; Adrienne Childs and Susan Libby, The Black Figure in the European Imaginary, exhibition catalog Cornell Fine Arts Museum at Rollins College, Winter Park, D. Giles Ltd, London, 2017; Elmer Kolfi n, “Becoming Human. The Iconography of Black Slavery in French, British and Dutch Book Illustrations, c. 1600-c. 1800,” in: Elizabeth McGrath and Jean Michel Massing (eds), The Slave in European Art, From Renaissance Trophy to Abolitionist Emblem, Warburg Institute Colloquia 20, The Warburg Institute – Nino Aragno Editore, London/Turin 2012, pp 253-293.
18 Almost half of Haiti’s population died in the gruesome war.
Clearly influenced by this countermovement, Napoleon Bonaparte wrote in his Les maximes et pensées, “All people are the same, if we make their chains from gold, they will not mind dedicating their lives to servitude (slavery).”
20
In 1793, slavery was abolished in Haiti after a two-year warfare of maroons and slaves against French rule.18 In Paris on February 4, 1794, the Convention Nationale proclaimed the end of slavery and declared the enslaved people French citizens.19 Immediately a countermovement arose, the so-called Club Massiac, consisting of wealthy plantation owners and slave merchants. In the Parisian Hotel Massiac, their homebase, members emphasized the catastrophic economical loss for France if slavery were to be banned in its entirety.
20 Napoleon Bonaparte, Les maximes et pensées, 1805, “Le peuple est le même partout. Quand on dore ses fers, il ne hait pas la servitude.”
20
The central queen-like figure, seated on a pillow, is dressed and armed. She has a bow in her left hand and is wearing a feathered crown, skirt, sandals, several necklaces, earrings, and bracelets while patting a hunting dog. Her palanquin is carried by four barefoot children dressed in loincloths. The feet of the clock could be that of a lioness or a cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus). The cheetah, which is the fastest animal on the African continent, is the only feline that cannot totally retract its nails, illustrated on the ornamentation. The hunting motif is echoed in the frieze, showcasing an alternating row of dog, fox and swine heads, framed in a geometric pattern built up out of hunting horns with tassels.
The abolishment lasted up to 1802 when Napoleon, pressured by the Massiac Club members, reinstated slavery.
This21 clock is a pendule au Noir Personnifié (Type A), like the personifications of Africa and America we discuss in the next section. The huntress is a figure of importance, as she is being carried by four African children. What does Picture 3 • The Huntress on a palanquin, or the Black Diana, ormolu and patination, Paris, c. 1800-1810
