Fall of Phaeton Clock

This exceptional sculptural clock depicts the classical myth of Phaeton, the son of Helios (the sun god). Phaeton has borrowed his father’s chariot, and startled by the constellation Scorpion, he flies too close to the earth, scorching it. The clock displays the moment when Zeus sends a thunderbolt which destroys the chariot and causes Phaeton to fall to his death. The frieze shows Phaeton’s sister, the Heliads, turning into poplars and his friend Cygnus changing into a swan. Made during the First French Republic (1792–1804), the dial displays the Republican calendar, a decimal calendar system which temporarily replaced the Gregorian calendar in post-revolutionary France.

The model of this clock is attributed to the bronzier Pierre-Etienne Romain, who deposited a drawing of this model in the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris.