This fine French mantel clock depicts ‘Leda and the Swan’, a renowned Greek mythological story in which the god Zeus, in the form of a swan, seduces Leda. According to later mythology, Leda bore Helen and Polydeuces, children of Zeus, while at the same time bearing Castor and Clytemnestra, children of her husband Tyndareus, King of Sparta. A very popular theme in art history, ‘Leda and the Swan’ features on various late 18th and early 19th century clocks.