I Tour of the Parnassia Collection

Have you ever seen a French Empire gilded pendulum clock like this before? 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 diffi cult 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 fi gures: 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 fi gures 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 fi gures, 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?

In order to decipher the messaging on the black clocks in the Parnassia Collection, we should: • Know who made them, as well as who bought them. Provenance • Know how to read them. Methodology • Know how to interpret the iconography (total sum or synergy of images and symbols on these clocks). • Identify the type of historic sources upon which they are based (written sources, pictorial languages or even oral history). Historiography and

Contextualization

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

genre paintings is deliberate and has meaning. This is also the case with the pendule au Noir. 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 fi ctitious fi gure can only be iconographically identifi ed 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 infl uence 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 diffi cult 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 identifi ed 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.

9 For more on Deverberie: http://www.antique-horology.org/deverberie/ 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.