painted with a ruin in a river landscape with travellers, label verso lists tunes as: Valse Robert le Diable, Valse de Strauss and La Marseillaise, with a gilt frame 69 x 79cm Footnote: Combining traditional landscape painting, with complex musical movements, and specialised horological craftsmanship, the present lot is an example of the fascinating, and much neglected, genre of musical clock paintings. Although pioneered in Geneva, the most sophisticated examples of these works date from the mid-19 th century, when the genre was developed and elevated to a more elaborate standard in Paris. Owing to the multitude of expertise required to produce such an object, a ‘tableau horloge’ would have been costly, and therefore reserved for only the finest of homes. Surrounded by a gilt frame, carved with acanthus and honeysuckle motifs, this 1853 oil on canvas depicts an idyllic pastoral scene. On the left, a group of three figures, one sitting atop a donkey, are joined by a black and white dog, as the landscape in the background recedes away from them. On the right, in a state of romantic disrepair, stands the skeleton of a Gothic church. Dwarfed beneath the pointed arches of the arcade stands a pair of figures, behind them, in the cavernous belly of the nave, small shafts of light cascade through the opposing facade. Above the arcade, the upper storeys of the building are replaced by a temporary structure, with just a glimpse of the decaying clerestory visible below the apex of the pitched roof. The adjoining clock tower encases the functional timepiece, its white circular dial painted with black Roman numerals and complete with two hands. While the bucolic scene is well painted, the real intricacies of the piece are hidden behind the canvas. Activated by levers at the bottom of the frame, a steel comb and small revolving cylinder plays three tunes, Valse Robert le Diable (1831), Valse de Strauss, and La Marseillaise (1792), while the double-barrelled clock movement triggers an hourly gong. Coeval labels, adhered to the inside of the frame, and an inscription to the backplate of the clock movement, suggest that this work was produced by Maison Wurtel, the atelier of clockmaker Ferdinand Wurtel, who had his premises at 38 to 40 Galerie Vivienne, Paris. Condition report: Areas of woodworm damage to the inside of the frame, musical component not functional, with one of the levers jammed.