Chiseled and mercury-gilded bronze. First French Empire, circa 1810. The subject takes inspiration from Canova's very famous statue of Hebe, which was already well-known at the time. Paris-type movement with hour and half-hour striking mechanism using a count wheel. The base is adorned with three laurel wreaths centered by dragonflies and is supported by square feet decorated with bow and arrow resting on a garland of roses. On top of the base, on the left, a column supports a large amphora; on the right, the standing figure of Hebe holds the wine jug in her left hand and embraces a cupid kneeling on the plinth containing the dial with her right. The cupid holds the cup in his left hand, offering it to the goddess; and the bow in his right. To the left of the cupid is a triumph consisting of a garland on which a quiver and a torch, symbol of passion, rest. The plinth contains the gilded bronze dial with the Roman numerals drawn in ink and a cartouche with the clockmaker's signature (illegible), inscribed within a garland of roses. The subject takes inspiration from Canova's very famous statue of Hebe, which was already well-known at the time. But the artist reverses it symmetrically to adapt it to the scene and places the jug in the left hand instead of the right; he also extends the right arm to embrace the cupid. Another difference is that the breast is covered here and not nude. For the rest, both the face and the hairstyle, as well as the jug, are similar to those of Canova. Greek goddess, daughter of Zeus and Hera or Juno. Together with the Horae and the Muses, she danced to the sound of Apollo's lyre and was the cupbearer of the gods; in more than one myth, she is found in the service of her mother. According to the Odyssey, she married Heracles when the hero was deified. In Rome, Hebe was identified with the indigenous goddess Iuventas and a temple was dedicated to her by the consul Marcus Livius Salinator (207 BC). As early as the 1783-85 drawings, Canova was studying motifs of female figures in motion; in the first decade of the new century he painted a whole series of Pompeian-style tempera paintings that developed the same motif in multiple rhythms, to which he later returned, in sculpture, with various dancers, from the one with her hands on her hips, now in Leningrad (1806), to the one with her finger to her chin, to the other with cymbals (1808-’9); but as early as 1796 he had modeled an elegant, light image of Hebe (currently in Germany) which aroused enormous enthusiasm so that the sculptor had to replicate it several times: in 1801 for the Empress Josephine (now in Leningrad), in 1814 for Lord Cawdor (at Chatsworth), in 1816 for Veronica Guerrini. This last one is the Forlì version, in which Canova, as in the English example, in addition to the subtle variations that he continually made to his inventions, introduced a new and unexpected element, polychromy in soft and nuanced colors.