Clock 1775 - 1785

Curator: Just looking at it, I feel an odd sense of melancholy – like time itself is a beautiful burden, draped in stone. Editor: Exactly! We're standing before a "Clock" crafted sometime between 1775 and 1785, now residing here at the Metropolitan Museum. It's a marble sculpture by Jean Martin, if you can believe it, turned into a functioning timepiece. Talk about combining disciplines. Curator: The figures! They're so caught in their own world, aren't they? This contemplative woman and the child. One almost fails to realize it's all centered on a very literal, functional clock. What a juxtaposition. Editor: It is a bit deceptive, that focus. If you think about where the marble comes from, the tools required for such delicate carving…all that labor boils down to *telling time*. And this wasn't just *telling* time, it was announcing status, flaunting artisanal skill in a pre-industrial world. It speaks to a moment where luxury was deeply connected to process. Curator: Oh, I love that. It transforms the very act of checking the time into this indulgent, theatrical affair. Like time itself isn't just slipping away, but something to be savored and considered amidst the beautiful artistry surrounding you. I wonder, how did people *feel* checking this clock versus a simple, mass produced one? Editor: The marble would have been incredibly costly. Even with specialized workshops and division of labor becoming more common at the time, each of these decorative elements—the gilding, the enamel clock face—represents individual expertise, feeding the overall aristocratic taste of the period and their patronage to a sculptor like Jean Martin. Curator: Do you think it reminds us of how we relate to time and objects today? When our daily lives are punctuated by our smartphone? Is anything truly treasured the way a marble clock in 1780 was? It gives one pause to reflect... Editor: Perhaps. It is interesting to see that, regardless of changing methods and the democratization of commodities, even a marble clock still only offers the most basic information about time, or can be seen today only as another form of consumption. Curator: Well, either way, next time I glance at my watch, I’ll certainly think of that woman draped in marble, grappling with time itself. Thank you for adding such color. Editor: My pleasure, it is fascinating to see how the artistic pursuit intertwines the production of sculpture and our experience of telling time itself.