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拍品专文
This magnificent table mirror is a tour de force of English early rococo design. Enriched with mother-of-pearl framed within maritime arabesques inspired by the designs of Jean Berain, the dressing-mirror is constructed in repoussé silver and silvered-bronze with a high copper content and its easel stand is signed by the brilliant – if little known – London metal-worker Edward Amory.
Edward Amory is scantly recorded – and he does not appear to have been registered with the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths – so today we only know of Amory’s work through a handful of surviving examples which he signed either Ed. Amory Fecit – as here - or Ed. Amory Londini Fecit. Working between circa 1720-40, he appears to have trained as a metal-worker - working in both silver and gilt-bronze - often in collaboration with the celebrated London clockmaker Charles Clay. Amongst Amory’s most sophisticated creations is the clock in the Imperial Clock Collection in the Palace Museum in Beijing; signed Ed. Amory Londini Fecit and dated 1730, which displays closely related 'Berain-esque' ornament to pierced side grills (illustrated in L. Yangzhen ed., Timepieces Collected by the Qing Emperors in the Palace Museum, Hong Kong, 1995, p. 194).
Thanks to his collaborations with Clay, we not only have a terminus ante quem for much of his oeuvre - but we can also understand something of the artistic and intellectual milieu in which he was working. Clay was born in Yorkshire, moved to London in 1717/18 and died in 1740. Significantly, from 1721 Clay worked extensively for the Office of Works in London on Royal commissions – being appointed Clockmaker to His Majesty’s Board of Works in 1723 (a position he held until 1737), and he seems to have begun making elaborate organ clocks from 1728-29 – with the related clocks in Naples and Beijing both being dating from circa 1730. Fascinatingly, Clay’s nine extravagant organ clocks represent a collaboration between the composer George Frederick Handel (1685-1759), the sculptor John-Michael Rysbrack (1694-1770) and the painter Jacopo Amigoni (1685-1752). This group is discussed by Dr. Tessa Murdock in `Time’s Melody’, Apollo, November 2013, pp. 78-85.
Interestingly, Amory appears to have worked in both silver and gilt-bronze interchangeably – both on a quill cutter which he signed – as well as on a superbly chased architectural relief representing Apollo with Time and Harmony in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (Acc. No. M.29 – 2009). This gilt-bronze plaque - which is identical to that in silver on the clocks in Beijing and the Royal Palace, Naples - has been identified as one of the components of a musical clock known as the `Temple of Apollo’ which was planned by Charles Clay and remained unfinished at the time of his death in 1740. The parts – including extensive silver elements presumably also by Amory - were exhibited by his widow in his London house and advertised in the Daily Gazeteer on 20 November 1741 by "the Widow of the late ingenious MR. CHARLES CLAY." Mrs Clay "reserved the most curious and valuable of all the Pieces of Clock-Work which her late Husband left behind him, and which with his own Hands he had brought to near to Perfection, that he called it, from the Figure of that Deity standing within the Fabrick, `The TEMPLE and ORACLE OF APOLLO.' This Machine, for the Perfection of the Musick, the Elegancy of the Structure, and the Richness of the Materials, far surpasses any Thing of the Kind exhibited either by Mr Clay in his Life-time or any other, and which the Widow believes the Curious, who shall do her the Honour to see and consider it, will readly allow. ‘Tis utterly impossible to describe this beautiful Piece of Mechanism in the Compass of an Advertisement. The solid Parts of the Fabrick are of Silver gilt; the Pillars, as also the Doors and other Lights into it, are made of Rock-Chrystal, curiously engraved and adorned with Silver Mouldings, Capitals, and Roses. It is embellished with a great Number of solid Silver Figures both within and without; most of which are gilt; and the whole is covered with a most curious Foliage of Enamel’d workd…" The Temple of Apollo has been identified with a clock acquired by the British Royal family and is now in Windsor Castle, which is published by Hugh Roberts, Country Life, 23 November 1995, pp. 58-59.
Edward Amory is scantly recorded – and he does not appear to have been registered with the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths – so today we only know of Amory’s work through a handful of surviving examples which he signed either Ed. Amory Fecit – as here - or Ed. Amory Londini Fecit. Working between circa 1720-40, he appears to have trained as a metal-worker - working in both silver and gilt-bronze - often in collaboration with the celebrated London clockmaker Charles Clay. Amongst Amory’s most sophisticated creations is the clock in the Imperial Clock Collection in the Palace Museum in Beijing; signed Ed. Amory Londini Fecit and dated 1730, which displays closely related 'Berain-esque' ornament to pierced side grills (illustrated in L. Yangzhen ed., Timepieces Collected by the Qing Emperors in the Palace Museum, Hong Kong, 1995, p. 194).
Thanks to his collaborations with Clay, we not only have a terminus ante quem for much of his oeuvre - but we can also understand something of the artistic and intellectual milieu in which he was working. Clay was born in Yorkshire, moved to London in 1717/18 and died in 1740. Significantly, from 1721 Clay worked extensively for the Office of Works in London on Royal commissions – being appointed Clockmaker to His Majesty’s Board of Works in 1723 (a position he held until 1737), and he seems to have begun making elaborate organ clocks from 1728-29 – with the related clocks in Naples and Beijing both being dating from circa 1730. Fascinatingly, Clay’s nine extravagant organ clocks represent a collaboration between the composer George Frederick Handel (1685-1759), the sculptor John-Michael Rysbrack (1694-1770) and the painter Jacopo Amigoni (1685-1752). This group is discussed by Dr. Tessa Murdock in `Time’s Melody’, Apollo, November 2013, pp. 78-85.
Interestingly, Amory appears to have worked in both silver and gilt-bronze interchangeably – both on a quill cutter which he signed – as well as on a superbly chased architectural relief representing Apollo with Time and Harmony in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (Acc. No. M.29 – 2009). This gilt-bronze plaque - which is identical to that in silver on the clocks in Beijing and the Royal Palace, Naples - has been identified as one of the components of a musical clock known as the `Temple of Apollo’ which was planned by Charles Clay and remained unfinished at the time of his death in 1740. The parts – including extensive silver elements presumably also by Amory - were exhibited by his widow in his London house and advertised in the Daily Gazeteer on 20 November 1741 by "the Widow of the late ingenious MR. CHARLES CLAY." Mrs Clay "reserved the most curious and valuable of all the Pieces of Clock-Work which her late Husband left behind him, and which with his own Hands he had brought to near to Perfection, that he called it, from the Figure of that Deity standing within the Fabrick, `The TEMPLE and ORACLE OF APOLLO.' This Machine, for the Perfection of the Musick, the Elegancy of the Structure, and the Richness of the Materials, far surpasses any Thing of the Kind exhibited either by Mr Clay in his Life-time or any other, and which the Widow believes the Curious, who shall do her the Honour to see and consider it, will readly allow. ‘Tis utterly impossible to describe this beautiful Piece of Mechanism in the Compass of an Advertisement. The solid Parts of the Fabrick are of Silver gilt; the Pillars, as also the Doors and other Lights into it, are made of Rock-Chrystal, curiously engraved and adorned with Silver Mouldings, Capitals, and Roses. It is embellished with a great Number of solid Silver Figures both within and without; most of which are gilt; and the whole is covered with a most curious Foliage of Enamel’d workd…" The Temple of Apollo has been identified with a clock acquired by the British Royal family and is now in Windsor Castle, which is published by Hugh Roberts, Country Life, 23 November 1995, pp. 58-59.