Console Table Depicting Chronos, or Father Time (c. 1700): Art, History and Details

Console Table Depicting Chronos, or Father Time (c. 1700) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

The marble tabletop is supported by a gilded wooden figure of Father Time (or “Chronos”) adorned with his typical attributes of wings, a scythe, and an hourglass. The metaphorical weight of his eternal role is emphasized as he bears the heavy stone slab on his shoulders while reaching up to ensure its balance.

Object facts

• Title: Console Table Depicting Chronos, or Father Time
• Date: c. 1700
• Culture: Italy, probably Rome, late 17th-early 18th Century
• Type: Furniture and woodwork
• Technique: painted and gilded wood, marble top
• Dimensions: Overall: 95.3 x 107.3 x 62.9 cm (37 1/2 x 42 1/4 x 24 3/4 in.)
• Collection: Furniture
• Department: Decorative Art and Design
• Accession number: 1968.31

A detail from the museum

Father Time’s scythe symbolizes natural cycles, like the harvest, and time's unstoppable flow that cuts down all living things.

Collection credit

Elisabeth Severance Prentiss Collection by exchange

Further reading listed by the museum

• Gabriel P. Weisberg, and H. W. Janson. Traditions and Revisions: Themes from the History of Sculpture. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1975.
• Piña, Leslie A. Furniture in History, 3000 B.C.–2000 A.D. 2nd ed. Boston: Prentice Hall, 2010.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.