Small Decorative French Mantel Clock, 1900 with Case Signed by Geo Maxim.

Small and Decorative French Mantel Clock from 1900. Decorative bronze box signed by Geo Maxim. Original decoration based on plant overlay topped at the top with two delicate birds, one at the bottom and one at the top, with outstretched wings. White porcelain dial with Arabic numerals lacquered in black enamel and decorated with a beautiful floral garland that runs along the numbers. Beautifully crafted Louis XIV style gilt hands. Front cover with original domed crystal very sharp and without breaks or scratches. It is in perfect condition, with crisp enamel and no hair on the dial, the dial is practically as good as new! The case is signed on the bottom: Geo Maxim. 8-day pendulum movement made by Parisian Samuel Marti. Back cover with a beautiful circular geometric floral decoration, which allows a better sound reproduction. Features a crisp, clean sound with hour and half-hour chime. Attached pendulum and original key.The mantel clock comes from the bracket clock or bracket, although this term is a bit confusing, since this type of clocks do not really rest on brackets, but were probably intended to be placed on a table, sideboard or fireplace, as it was in those years the place in the house where the family was usually concentrated. The bracket of the early years had the characteristic of being portable, which largely conditioned its mechanism, and it would not be until 1800 when the pallet escapement was definitively replaced by the anchor escapement in the bracket clocks, which allowed the development of decorative clocks that undoubtedly, in addition to telling the time, decorated the room. The first French examples followed the lines of the Regency style, but later followed other styles with decorative ornaments and embossing when in the nineteenth century are carried out in this type of pieces a revival of previous styles (Baroque, Empire, Rococo, Neoclassicism ...) often even mixing them to create a series of very particular and aesthetically very beautiful pieces. When Art Nouveau burst into France at the end of the 19th century, watch cases were adapted to this new style, which advocated a handcrafted production, a sinuous decoration based on curved plant forms taken from nature and a very particular aesthetic. The characteristics of the French modernist style can be perfectly appreciated in the case of this watch, although the mechanism and the decoration of the dial, still maintains the stylistic parameters of the previous pieces.George (Geo) Maxim will be a famous French sculptor who carried out important sculptures in Modernist style as this example in the late nineteenth century, early twentieth century, but will be known especially for the spectacular female sculptures in Art Deco style that he carried out in the first third of the twentieth century.Magnificent piece of author that will not take long to find an owner according to its quality.Measures: 19 x 16 x 13 cm.