Here are a few among the countless clocks that have descended through numerous royal owners in England until they reached the possession of the present Queen. Several incorporate ceramic figures originally imported from China. Others were created in pre-Revolutionary France. The celadon jars and pitchers we looked at yesterday remain today every bit as fashionable as they ever did.
The same cannot be said for elaborately embellished clocks like these. They have now become museum curiosities – "dust catchers" – rather than the objects of overt desire they once must have been.
