This notecard features the Fall of Phaeton clock currently on display in our Clocks of the World exhibit. Share your experience at the Halim Time & Glass Museum by sending one of our original notecards!
This exceptional sculpture clock depicts the classical myth of Phaeton, the son of Helios. Phaeton has borrowed his father's chariot, and startled by the zodiac Scorpion, he flies too close to the earth, scorching it. The clock displays the moment when Zeus sends a thunderbolt, which destroys the chariot and causes Phaeton to fall to his death. Made during the First French Republic (1792- 1804), the dial displays the Republican calendar, a decimal calendar system which temporarily replaced the Gregorian calendar in post-revolutionary France. The model of this clock is attributed to the bronzier Pierre-Etienne Romain (1765- 1821) c. 1798.
Halim Time & Glass Museum original.