A French patinated and gilt-bronze, Tarpeian Rock and Rouge Griotte marble table clock, Bazile-Charles Leroy, Paris, circa 1820

This striking clock features patinated bronze figures of the Wolf of Rome, Remus and Romulus, with a fragment of the Tarpeian Rock, a steep cliff on the south side of the Capitoline Hill, which was used during the Roman Republic as a site of execution.

According to the legend, the brothers Remus and Romulus were abandoned on the banks of the Tiber River after their grandfather, King Numitor was overthrown by his brother Amulius. The infants were rescued by a she-wolf that cared for them until a herdsman, Faustulus, found and raised them. When they grew up, Romulus and Remus took back their grandfather’s kingdom and founded the city of Rome. Here, the figure of the wolf could to have been modeled after the sculpture of the wolf by Antonio Federighi de Tolomei in Sienna. 

The famous sculpture of the she-wolf and the infants now in the Musei Capitolini, Rome was described by Cicero, due to the presence of damage to the sculpture’s paw. It was believed to correspond to the lighting strike of 65 BC. The engraving to the base of the figures 'ROMANI NOMINIS ALTRIX' seems to make reference to Cicero's Third Oration against Lucius Catalina:

Hic silvestris erat Romani nominis altrix,

Martia, quae parvos Mavortis semine natos

uberibus gravidis vitali rore rigabat;

quae tum cum pueris flammato fulminis ictu

concidit atque avolsa pedum vestigia liquit.

(Here was the Martian beast, the nurse of Roman dominion, Suckling with life-giving dew, that issued from udders distended, Children divinely begotten, who sprang from the loins of the War God; Stricken by lightning she toppled to earth, bearing with her the children; Torn from her station, she left the prints of her feet in descending.)

The Tarpeian Rock

The Tarpeian Rock (or Saxum Tarpeium, in Latin) was named after the myth of Tarpeia. According to Roman legends, Tarpeia, the daughter of Roman commander Spurius Tarpeius, offered to betrayed the city of Rome when it was besieged by the Sabine King Titus Tatius in the aftermath of the Rapes of the Sabines during the 8th century B.C., in return for gold. Although she helped the Sabines, they cheated her and killed her either by crushing her or hurling her from the cliff which would become to be known as the Tarpeian Rock. For centuries later, during the Roman Republic, the location over 25 meters high became a site of execution for prisoners who had committed the most heinous crimes. 

Bazile-Charles Le Roy (1765-1839)

Bazile-Charles Le Roy, son of the clockmaker Bazile Le Roy (1731-1804) and grandson of Jean Le Roy, became a maître in 1788 having founded la Maison de Le Roy at 60, Galerie de Pierre, Palais-Royal in circa 1785 following the opening of the Palais-Royal gardens to the public and its buildings to the trade by Philippe Egalité, the duc d'Orléans, allowing a number of other clockmakers to set up shop in the arcade galleries. Following the French Revolution, during which Le Roy worked for the Republic signing his clocks Elroy, Le Roy moved his business to Galerie Montpensier, 13-15 Palais-Royal, where they were to remain for nearly a hundred years. Le Roy was appointed a clockmaker to the Emperor Napoleon and to the latter's mother Madame Mère, as well as being clockmaker to Princess Pauline and Jérôme Bonaparte, King of Westphalia and then in 1829 he was appointed Royal Clockmaker to the duc de Bourbon and duc de Chartres. He exhibited clocks at the Paris Exposition of l'an VI (1797/8) and then 1819, 1823 and 1827.

The firm Le Roy & Fils was created in 1828 by Bazile-Charles Le Roy and his son Charles-Louis Le Roy. Upon the death of his father, Charles-Louis took over the firm, which was very successful, soon becoming suppliers to the King and the Duke d’Orléans. In 1845, Charles-Louis sold the company to an employee, Casimir Desfontaines, who continued to run Le Roy & Fils, in 1856 opening a shop at 211-Regent Street in London and taking part in most of the important international exhibitions, winning many prize medals. Named Watchmaker to the Queen and to the Emperor of Brazil, he won many honours and in 1883 left the firm to his son Georges Desfontaines.