Clock, Part of a Five Piece Clock Garniture, c.1880 (silvered bronze, glass, paper)

Composed of newly made machine parts, this clock garniture (a set of decorative objects for display) is an overt celebration of the machine and industrialization. Just a generation earlier, political reformers and writers such as Charles Dickens were preoccupied with the negative aspects of the Industrial Revolution, including the blight of polluted, overcrowded cities. By 1885, as the Eiffel Tower rose in Paris, a tamer, less menacing vision of the factory and machine had emerged; industrial design could now function as the emblem of a capital city or—as here—as a collectible for an entrepreneur. If one turns the base of the large candelabra, the cogs engage and the candle holders move up and down.