English: This is a clock movement and music box: a beautiful combination of clock making, painting, and music.

The painting represents a village scene on the banks of a river.

The movement is a Paris movement. A clock painting is rewound like a pendulum, with keys. With a music box too, the Museum’s clock painting is somewhat special.

In the 19th century, the golden age of mechanical musical instruments which allowed a non-musical public to access music, these musical paintings certainly had an effect.

On the Museum’s clock painting, the music box is no longer connected to the clock mechanism. The music would play a tune each time it chimed (on the hour, half hour). On this tableau à surprise, the music box must have been added later.