“Mirror” standing clock

This clock is one of a pair of standing clocks in a case decorated with mirrors, a set unique on a world scale due to the fragile decoration and its history. The clocks represent a period of Baroque fascination with the illusion produced by mirrors applied in the decoration of the Louis XIV Galleries des Glaces at the Versailles, the mirror cabinets of more opulent residences and the decorations of furniture and boxes. The multiplied reflections of the ornaments enhance the effect of lavishness. The shapes of the case as well as the proportions and motifs of the decorations of the Wilanów ”mirror” clock refer to projects by the French royal court decorator Daniel Marot from the end of the seventeenth century. The dial-plate shows the passing seconds, minutes, hours and days of the month. The mechanism was made and signed by the Wrocław clockmaker Christoph Benjamin König, and the weight clock has an anchor escapement and a long pendulum. The clock chimes every quarter of an hour, half hour and hour.