Jean-Simon de Verberie and the Pendules au Negre

Jean-Simon De Verberie and the Pendules au Nègre
by Harm Botje

In 1784 the two Horlogiers du Roi, Furet en Godon, offered to queen Marie-Antoinette a very special clock.

Négresse enrubannée, akin to the pendule of Marie-Antoinette.

La Négresse enrubannée, as the pendule was named, was mounted on a music box that could play 64 different tunes. When pulling the earrings of the Négresse, her eyes showed the time. Her price: 4000 livres, about a quarter of a million euros, at a time when 300 livres was considered to be a good yearly income. Four of these pendules were made. One of them can be found in Buckingham Palace. It was bought around 1790 by the Prince-Regent. They were the first examples of what in the years after would become a precious and fashionable article, the Pendules au Nègre, also called Pendules au Bon Sauvage, after the idea Jean-Jacques Rousseau had popularised.

Negresse enrubannee, simmilar to the pendule of Marie-Antoinette.

All the pendules, statues and chandeliers on this page are designed, made or inspired by the undoubted master in the field, Jean-Simon De Verberie (1764-1824). The statues and the candlesticks were also made in his atelier. Some even call De Verberie the Michelangelo of the genre. He was twenty years old and a promising clockmaker when Marie-Antoinette played the 64 airs on her Négresse. He witnessed her decapitation and Robespierre’s Reign of Terror and around 1800 he opened shop in the Rue de Barbette in the Parisian Marais. In this quarter of the city he remained all his working life, from 1804 onwards on the Boulevard du Temple and from 1812-1820 in the Rue des Fossés du Temple, where he ran a large atelier.

The way he spelled his name is a sign of the turbulent times he lived in.

After the Revolution, he dropped the aristocratic prefix “de” and called himself Verbery. Then he combined name and prefix into Deverberie, to end his life aristocratically again as De Verberie. On the 23rd of Nivôse of the year VII (January 12, 1799) he officially registered a “baker’s dozen” of his designs, later followed by others. They can be admired at the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris. Amongst them was the design of “our” Amérique, the pendule top left. Many leading clock museums possess De Verberie’s work, among them the Musée François-Duesberg in Mons, Belgium. His pendules all have one thing in common. They stand out by their very detailed and refined finishing. De Verberie’s pendules are never varnished, they are patinated. The eyes are out of enamel, never painted or made of gass. The earrings with which he adorned his female figures are made of finely cut crystal of a perfect colour. More than any of his competitors, and he had many, De Verberie excels in his finishing touch. He is the master of the détail.

Sketch of ‘Amérique’, deposited by De Verberie. It is the upper-left pendule of the Zuylenburgh Collection.
click to enlarge/minimise

“Politi Pecalndules”

But De Verberie not only made very special pendules that are remarkable by their refinement. In a certain way his pendules are also social and political statements. They are a turn against slavery and symbolise equality. De Verberie got the ideas for his designs partly from a book that had an enormous impact in late 18th century France. The book, Paul et Virginie, is probably one of the most popular works in French litterature. It was written by Jacques-Henri Bernardin de Saint-Pierre (1737-1814) and was originally published 1787 as part of his “Études de la nature”. Based on Rousseau’s ideas Bernardin de St. Pierre elaborated on his experiences and impressions during his trip around Africa to Île de France, present day Mauritius and at that time a French slaveholding colony. In 1789, the year the French Revolution broke out,

Paul et Virginie was published as an independent novel, in Paris by L’Imprimerie de Monsieur. That publishing house was owned by his father-in-law Pierre-François Didot (1731-1795), member of a famous publishing dynasty. After that, the reprints and adaptations followed each other in quick succession.

Paul et Virginie is a romantic love story that takes place on Île de France, now Mauritius, depicted by the writer as an idyllic paradise à la Rousseau, but poisoned by civilisation. Because of Virginie’s love for Paul
Virginie’s class conscious mother sends her to a convent school in France to break up the couple. When at last she returns, her ship founders on the cliffs, in front of Paul’s eyes. In vain he tries to save her and smitten by sorrow dies himself. In its own time, the book was seen as an indictment of the hypocrisy of the upper classes. It follows Rousseau’s principle that western civilisation corrupts man, an idea later picked up by various socialistic movements. St. Pierre’s book also fits into the late 18th century “Sturm und Drang” period that started with Goethe’s “Die Leiden des jungen Werthers”. That book, which had a young Napeolon raving (he set his hand to an awful novel based on it), brought about a wave of suicides. With his Werther, Goethe ushered in the beginning of romanticism, the emotional soul versus the rational mind of the Enlightenment.

Click to download Paul et Virginie” in PDF formaat.

But Paul et Virginie not only reduced its readers to floods of tears. It is also an indictment of slavery, an inhuman system according to Bernardin de St. Pierre. In that system, the slave is treated as less than an animal, whereas the slaveholder becomes a savage brute, loosing all of his humanity. Slavery brings about the worst in human behaviour. The slaveholders in the book represent “la culture” that makes man bad, the slaves represent “la nature”. They are the “les bons sauvages”, mankind in its untarnished, natural state, like the French explorer Louis Antoine de Bougainville found it in 1768 on Tahiti, when he crossed the Pacific to observe the transition of Venus of 1769, the “international scientific happening of the age”. Tahiti as an unspoiled paradise, at least that was the opinion of the encyclopédiste Diderot. Diderot got extremely angry about Bougainville’s description of the “sinful and loose” Tahitian mores in sexualibus, avidly read about in France. It was Bougainville himself who had depraved and spoiled the Tahitians by introducing western concepts of sin and western avariciousness, thundered Diderot, “may the sea herself close her waves over Bougainville’s head.”

Portrait of Denis Diderot

Whatever the case, the enamoured Paul and Virginie were one of the reasons the French National Convention offically abolished slavery on the 16th Pluviôse of the year II (February 4th, 1794). The abolition hardly had any impact and the decree only stood during eight years. In 1802 Napeolon, First Consul, reintroduced slavery again to counter the big insurgence on French Haiti, which he ordered his brother-in-law Leclerc to surpress. Napoleon’s man-crazy sister Pauline, Leclerc’s wife, behaved so “Tahitian” that
the First Consul furiously forbade any publications about his sister’s well-known and turbulent love-life.

nÃ¨greÂ en deÂ nÃ©gresse

DECRET N° 2262. DE LA CONVENTION NATIONALE du 16. jour Pluviose, an second de la République Française, une & indivisible, Qui abolit l’Esclavage des Nègres dans les Colonies

La Convention Nationale déclare que l’esclavage des Nègres dans toutes les Colonies est aboli ; en conséquence elle décrète que les hommes, sans distinction de couleur, domiciliés dans les colonies, sont citoyens Français, & jouiront de tous les droits assurés par la constitution. Elle renvoie au comité de salut public, pour lui faire incessamment un rapport sur les mesures à prendre pour assurer l’exécution du présent décret. Visé par les inspecteurs. Signé Auger, Cordier & S.E. Monnel.

Collationné à l’original, par nous président & secrétaire de la Convention Nationale. A Paris, le 22 Germinal, an second de la République Française, une & indivisible. Signé AMAR, président ; A.M. Baudot, Monnot, Ch. Pottier & Peyssard, secrétaires.

Au nom de la République, le Conseil exécutif provisoire mande & ordonne à tous les Corps administratifs & Tribunaux, que la présente loi ils fassent consigner dans leurs registres, lire, publier & afficher, & exécuter dans leurs départements & ressorts respectifs ; en foi de quoi nous y avons apposé notre signature & le sceau de la République. A Paris, le vingt-deuxième jour de Germinal, an second de la République Française, une & indivisible.

Signé Buchot, président par intérim, Contresigné Gohier. Et Scellée du sceau de la République.

Abolition decree of 16 Pluviôse II
for the original text look left

Pauline Bonaparte as Venus Victrix by Antonio Canova.

The famous statue of Pauline Bonaparte as Venus Victrix by Antonio Canova (left). Canova also made a gigantic statue of Napoleon as Mars the Peacemaker (right). Both fit into the classicistic style of the pendules, with Paris as the new Rome.

Napoleon as “Mars de Peacemaker” by “Canova”

De Verberie’s Language of Symbols

In his pendules, De Verberie uses symbols that everybody in his time well understood. The top left pendule on this page, Amérique, symbolises the American continent, with the goddess Diana, the goddess of la nature, in her American form. The cayman at her feet symbolises the continent itself. This pendule has a pendant, Afrique, the pendule below right of Amérique. Here too one finds Diana, now with a tortoise and a lioness, symbols of Africa. Under Amérique and to the left of Afrique is the pendule with Paul et Virginie. Their dramatic love story gave the inspiration to all of these pendules. De Verberie used his designs always several times, but always too with clear alterations, as can be seen with his candlesticks au bon sauvage. In the left row you see the fronts, in the other row the backs and none of them is exactly the same.

“Moi Libre aussi” – two anti-slavery vignets from 1792, by Simon-Louis Boizot