From the Revolution to the present day
In the second part of the 18th century, and already beforehand, the mantle clock gradually replaced the large salon clock. It was designed to match its surroundings, the mirror frame, the candelabras or the accompanying vases.
This is virtually the only manner in which it appears throughout most of the 19th century in the few pictures in which it is depicted. It is barely ever shown other than in clockmaking workshops: that of Abraham-Louis Perrelet or of Jacques-Frédéric Houriet (both of whom at Locle) in the form of sometimes very simple regulators, or the workshops of clockmakers and traders in the Black Forest. The countryside interiors of Germany and Switzerland, in the Neuchâtel Mountains, still provided the setting for the clockmaker's workshop alongside that of lacemakers at work on their cushions.
In other words, the clock then belonged primarily to popular art, which is not meant in a pejorative sense as art is "one" and has no hierarchy or, rather, does so only by virtue of the value of the work.
The Restoration attempted to reintroduce other notions; but the clockmaking creations instigated by the Romantics were so unsuccessful that specialists feign ignorance of them. The attempts made by the pseudo-Renaissance under the Second Empire fared little better, and the entire 19th century strove in vain to create a new style.
After a long period of obvious decline, the best forms of the erstwhile simple clock, with the more delightful of its decorations, have been reintroduced in recent times, and this is how photographers and sometimes even painters restore it to life in the few portraits or genre paintings made.
Ladies’ watches, for their part, returned to prominence under the Empire thanks to the sautoir, a highly ornamental chain, from which they were sometimes suspended. They were also worn "on the neck", meaning on the neckline of the dress, held in place by an invisible chain. Later on, barely no allusion was made to the watch except by the short châtelaine pin, as in the famous portrait of "Monsieur Bertin" painted by Ingres. The smart characters from the novels of Pushkin or Balzac wore a "Breguet" in the fob of their belt, from which a sober breloquier would hang. The watch chain draped across the waistcoat then became universal for a time, in anticipation of the bracelet watch which would inevitably reappear in portraits as jewellery adorning the arms of elegant ladies.
Curiously, in one of the very first photographs, around 1840, the diplomat Sir John McNeill was still keen to place both watch and chain prominently by his arm as he leans on the pedestal table. By and large, watches and clocks no longer made much of an appearance except in caricatures or satire.
Horometry finally leads us back to the symbol, the last image of this work: Apollo or, if you prefer, the god of day and light, drives the Sun's chariot, having revealed to Urania, the muse of Astronomy, the greatness and poetry of Space and Time. Soon the steeds are let loose into the open sky, flouting the laws of gravity. But wait! We are straying from Time and its measurement only to embrace the Universal!