The design for this spectacular mantel clock is taken from Jacques-Louis David's 1784 painting of The Oath of the Horatii and exemplifies the late eighteenth and early nineteenth-century fashion for modelling clocks after iconic historical pictures. As in David's celebrated painting, the three Horatii brothers are here depicted taking the oath of fidelity to Rome before receiving arms from their father and going off to fight the Curatii to determine the supremacy of either Rome or Alba. Two of the Horatii and the three Curatii were killed. With close family ties existing between these two houses - one of the three Horatii brothers had married a Curatti and a sister was betrothed to another - the decision to fight represented the patriotic ideal of placing country before family, a virtue which was favored by European princes and examples of this clock can be found in several Royal collections.
One model, also with a vert de mer marble base, was acquired by George, Prince of Wales, in 1809 for the Large Crimson Drawing Room at Carlton House; it remains in the Royal Collection at Buckingham Palace and is illustrated in R. Garnier, et al, Buckingham Palace, A Complete Guide, London 1993, p.92, fig 1. A second model of this clock, apparently identical to the one at Buckingham Palace, is in the Munich Residenz, see H. Ottomeyer and P. Pröschel, Vergoldete Bronzen, Munich 1986, p. 367, fig. 5.13.5, while a third example is in the anteroom of Prince Frederik Adolf's apartments in the Royal Palace, Stockholm, see H. Groth, Neoclassicism in the North, London, 1990, p. 23 fig. 7. For a clock of this model by Claude Galle and Lucien-François Feuchère and signed Galle/rue Vivienne à Paris, see Christie's, Monaco, 13 December 1998, lot 430. The clock offered in Monaco is possibly the one recorded in the collection of the duchesse de Reggio, wife of the Maréchal de France Charles-Nicolas Oudinot (1767-1847), whose estate included Une grande pendule à sonnerie du nom de Galle, boîte carré socle en marbre vert antique et quatre figures: le serment des Horaces socle orné de figures analogues au même sujet, le tout de bronze 2100 francs. The present lot differs from the above comparable clocks as it is particularly sumptuous being supplemented with a matching pair of candelabra, forming a particularly grand garniture.