A garniture of Napoléon III "Aux Nubiens"

Garniture "aux Nubiens", Napoléon III, probably Vienna circa 1880/90.

Zinc casting extraordinarily finely painted and partly gilded. Clock in the shape of an elephant with a Nubian woman sitting on a palanquin on a profiled rectangular base with curved feet. Flower-shaped dial with 12 enamel cartouches for Roman hour numerals. Parisian movement with 1/2 - hour strike on a bell. Girandoles with striding Nubian figure, carrying 1 arch with vase-shaped spout, on rectangular base with curved feet. Restored mount. Pendulum 43x23x53cm. H girandoles 48cm.

Fine and very rare ensemble, manifesting the "goût écletique" of the second half of the 19th century in a typical manner. The extraordinarily fine, imaginative workmanship is in the tradition of the so-called "Viennese bonzes" of the decades around 1900.