Mantel clock ca. 1745-49 Clockmaker: Julien Le Roy During the eighteenth century in Europe, enthusiasm for objects from Asia was far from new. Imported Chinese porcelain and Japanese lacquers had been highly prized throughout the seventeenth century, and a variety of Chinese-inspired ornamental motifs as well as direct copies began to appear on a range of European-made objects. This clock incorporates the figure of Pu-tai Hi-Shang, a Chinese apostle of the Buddha. Made at the porcelain manufactory established by the Prince of Condé at his chteau at Chantilly, it is a literal copy of a blanc de chine model imported to Europe in the first half of the eighteenth century. A number of the soft-paste porcelain flowers were also made at Chantilly (the hard-paste flowers are later replacements). The porcelain figure is placed on a gilt-bronze base of exuberantly rococo form which is stamped in numerous places with the crowned C, a tax mark in use between February 1745 and February 1749.Julien