Yves Saint Laurent Pierre Bergé - Christie's

a European style palace to provide a setting for it.
Thus the European Palaces were created, and
Father Benoist spent most of the next 25 years
devising decorative waterworks for them.
The most spectacular of these waterworks was the
magnificent clepsydra in front of the Haiyangtang
(Palace of Tranquil Seas). In the centre was a huge
marble shell, and on either side were twelve seated
calendrical animals, each representing a two-hour
period in the Chinese horary cycle. The bodies
were human, clothed and carved in stone, but the
heads were cast in bronze; meticulously fashioned
in a wholly European style. Two of these animal
heads – the rat and the rabbit – are included in the
current sale and the features of European realism,
fine attention to detail, and superb casting can
clearly be seen. The Chinese day was divided into
twelve two-hour periods, each represented by
animals – rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse,
sheep, monkey, rooster, dog and boar. The rat
represents the first, Zi, period from 11 pm of the
previous day to 1 am, while the rabbit represents
the fourth, Mao, period from 5 am to 7 am.
The clepsydra was designed so that each head
spouted water for its appropriate two-hour period
and all twelve heads spouted water at noon. It
must have been a splendid sight, but sadly by the
end of the Qianlong reign the court had lost
interest in the Yuanming Yuan European Palaces,
and in 1795 the order was given to strip out and
melt down the bronze pipe-work of the fountains
and clepsydra. These superb bronze heads,
however, remain as a testament to an emperor’s
caprice and the remarkable skill of the European
missionary artists who served him.
Engraving of the fountain
opposite page: Both heads photographed in José Maria Sert y Badia’s living room
– Rosemary Scott
International Academic Director, Asian Art
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