Exhibition Guide
Mantel Clock
Audio
A Letter from the Maker
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Audio
Seeing and Hearing This Clock with Former BMA Curator David Park Curry
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Additional Images
About Maker: Jacques Nicolas Pierre François Dubuc
(French, active c. 1790-1830)Art Object Info
In 1815, French clockmaker Jacques Dubuc sent advertisements to Baltimore for this mantle clock, available in two sizes and featuring a “statue of the great Washington” fashioned after a popular print of the general heading to battle. The inscription, “First in War, First in Peace, First in the Hearts of his Countrymen,” champions George Washington as a Revolutionary War general, politician, and founding father of the United States. But this was only part of Washington’s identity. At Mount Vernon, his plantation south of Washington, D.C., the first president enslaved over 577 people in his lifetime. His political and military successes protected only the rights of free, white, land-holding men. After Washington’s death in 1799, commemorative objects and images were displayed by households that benefited from such racial and economic privilege.
Mantel Clock
In 1815, French clockmaker Jacques Dubuc sent advertisements to Baltimore for this mantle clock, available in two sizes and featuring a “statue of the great Washington” fashioned after a popular print of the general heading to battle. The inscription, “First in War, First in Peace, First in the Hearts of his Countrymen,” champions George Washington as a Revolutionary War general, politician, and founding father of the United States. But this was only part of Washington’s identity. At Mount Vernon, his plantation south of Washington, D.C., the first president enslaved over 577 people in his lifetime. His political and military successes protected only the rights of free, white, land-holding men. After Washington’s death in 1799, commemorative objects and images were displayed by households that benefited from such racial and economic privilege.