Elephant and Castle Clock

Extremely rare and important Castle on Elephant Clock, made for tribute to the Chinese Imperial Court.

This clock was likely commissioned for the Chinese Emperor by a European ruler in support of Jesuit missionary work. The elephant and castle is a European motif that symbolizes nobility and strength of rulers dating to medieval times. The blending of European, Christian, and European interpretation of Asian imagery was common in clocks commissioned for tribute to the Emperor. These early tribute clocks combine imagery in surprising ways: A Chinese figure holding the world, like Atlas; a European rendering of Cupid sitting atop an elephant, for example. Asian-inspired curiosities on this clock include the goddess-like figure in the arches and the engraving of the dais (under the feet of the elephant).

This clock contains a wealth of functions: The tail acts as a pendulum and the eyes of the elephant oscillate as the pendulum swings (an “improvement” added soon after the advent of the pendulum in 1657, although the oscillation of the eyes is original). The automaton monkey turns and the guards on the castle turret revolve on the hours and quarter hours.

The ebony base contains a figure of a man in European dress who is tied to a tree surrounded by a revolving panther, lion and tiger. He raises a cross as if to fend off the beasts. The Jesuits incorporated religious imagery on clocks as a means of teaching Christianity to the Chinese, who admired men of virtue.

Very few examples of a clock with a castle on top of an elephant are known to exist and the known examples are less complex. Two were commissioned by a duchy in Bologna with their coat of arms on the saddle cloth under the howdah/castle, similar to this clock.

A clock by renowned Augsburg goldsmith Melchior Mair matches the description of a clock given by Duke Maximilian of Bavaria to the Jesuits before 1616 for the mission to China. That example bears striking similarities to this clock including Western imagery and mythology, identical ebony bases, and similar figures on the dais. The Mair clock lacks the functions of the Elephant and Castle clock, a further testament to the importance of this piece. The similarity to a clock documented as being for the Jesuit mission to China in this exact period is noteworthy.