Pocket Watch Holder and Globe Watch Paperweight, 19th Century

This object of curiosity is an entire era in itself. In the second half of the 19th century, traveling circuses multiplied in France after Théodore Rancy founded the first one in Rouen in 1856. It was then a fervor that took hold of all of France. Everyone rushed to admire the acrobats, to have fun with the clowns and to marvel at the wild animals. At the same time, the industrial revolution was in full swing and, with it, watches became democratized, marking the pace of work and making time and its use a new obsession. This watch holder sets on the top of a marble column, a gilded bronze elephant, recalling the sad circus exercises that were inflicted on pachyderms at the time, forcing these imposing animals, with a heavy step and an anxious nature, to be as light as a bird.
The tip of the elephant’s trunk serves as a support for a glass globe imprisoning a clock mechanism. This curious pocket watch, too imposing to be hidden in a pocket, was more commonly used as a paperweight. The set, in excellent condition, is certainly an original and unique object.