View to the majestic golden Peacock Clock, with fully opened tail, one of the most famous exhibits in the Pavilion Hall of the Hermitage Museum. It was created in 1777 by the London jeweler and goldsmith James Cox and gifted by Prince Grigory Potemkin to the Russian Empress Catherine the Great.
This unique peacock moving clock is a true work of art, that features the figures of a peacock, cockerel, owl and squirrels sitting on the golden branches of an oak tree. The figures in the composition are in real size. A mechanism hidden inside sets the figures in motion, with the peacock exhibiting its majestic feathers in the most lifelike manner.
James Cox was undoubtedly one of the most celebrated creators of unique mechanisms in the eighteenth-century. Born in London in 1723, initially trained as a goldsmith, he set up a workshop of curiosities.
Later he became famous by creating clocks with luxury musical mechanisms and exported them around the world, even as far as China. Unfortunately, little has survived to the present day.
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