File:Sketch of a French Empire style clock. The Three Graces.jpg

To be executed in gilt bronze mounted cut crystal; enamel dial.

Surmounted by a crystal vase of basket form cut with hobnails in a trellis pattern, supported by three female caryatids holding floral swags standing on individual crystal socles decorated en suite, the clock dial within bound oakleaf bezel resting on two of their shoulders, the whorled pendulum bob also of crystal; on similarly cut crystal cylindrical plinth, on beaded feet.

The Three Graces were the personification of grace and beauty, often represented as the handmaidens of Venus, sharing several of her attributes, including the rose, which could be arranged here in the glass bowl. According to Hesiod, their names were Aglaia, Euphrosyne and Thalia. Seneca described them as standing for the threefold aspect of generosity: giving, receiving and reciprocating; the Renaissance saw them as the three phases of love: beauty, arousing desire, leading to fulfilment, or as personification of Chastity, Beauty and Love. Here, such evocations of Love may be taken to symbolise the bond between king and people, the caryatid figures supporting the ‘cup’ of the nation overflowing with the flowers with which it is meant to be filled.