248. JEAN FREDMAN (master 1736-1762, court clock maker 1745-1758), floor clock, Stockholm work, Fredrik I's time, signed Jan Fredman Stockholm Nr. 3.

Brass dial with dial in pewter with Arabic and Roman numerals, decoration of berain ornaments and psychopomps, woodcut decoration, gilded and painted, hood crowned with floral twigs, sides with louver openings, sound bowl cast marked SPS, case with fields and cartouches, front decoration of bow with pendant instrument, lyre, flute and horn, ending ribbon braid and volute feet, full stroke, center second and date display, drawstring, solder, key and pendulum included, height 260 cm

PROVENANCE: Stockholms Auktionsverk, Stora Kalitén, spring 2006, no 1737

LITERATURE: Gunnar Pipping, Elis Sidenbladh and Erik Elfström: Watchmakers and watchmakers in Sweden and Finland, Stockholm 1995, page 269, compare busy works under Jean Fredman
Bo J. Ronnerstam: Fredman's tid - The Age of Freedom - The Golden Age of Stockholms watchmakers, Stockholm 2013, page 184, full page

The watchmaker Jean Fredman is eternally associated with Carl Michael Bellman's central work Fredman's Epistles, consisting of 82 songs, created over two decades. Fredman, born Johan Fredrik Fredman in 1712 or 1713 in Stockholm, was the son of watchmaker Andreas Fredman in his first marriage. Jean apprenticed with his father and later made his companion's journey to London. He was admitted as watchmaker master in the Stockholm office on 3 April 1736, after producing an English repeating clock. In 1741 he was elected alderman in the county, which he resigned in 1745 when he was appointed court watchmaker to Frederick I, in 1748 Fredman was again elected alderman. For a period he was also supervisor of the tower in Storkyrka until 1752 and in Riddarholm Church until 1757. His workshop was housed in the Bergstralska huset, opposite Riddarhuset.

At the age of 33, he married an elderly wealthy widow, Katarina Liedberg, which was the prelude to Fredman's decline and fall. In 1750 a scandalous process was started between the spouses, and in connection with the death of his wife in 1752, Fredman's economic and social situation worsened considerably. He had mismanaged his office and embezzled money which led to legal proceedings, eventually he was stripped of his honorary titles and his property. He eventually ended up on the street where he drifted around like one of Stockholm's many alcoholics. He finally died of pneumonia on 9 May 1767, his unhappiness and poverty clearly illustrated by the fact that he was not even allowed to rest in the family grave. Examples of his professional skills are also preserved in the form of an English night tour in the Stockholm Stadsmuseum and two table clocks both in Rococo, one with veneered lining and burnt-gilt brass fittings and the other in burnt-gilt bronze with the signature Fredman Stockholm, in Drottningholm Palace.

The protagonist of Bellman's famous epistles is Jean Fredman, a downtrodden former watchmaker, when he died in 1767 Bellman was 27 years old and wrote the first poem about Fredman. It is Fredman's Funeral, a Bacchi Ordenspoem that later became Fredman's Song No. 26. The world of the epistles is populated by alcoholics and harlots and parodies both the Bible and society at large; in particular, the inordinate pursuit of pleasures and pleasures that characterized contemporary Stockholm. The few times we meet Fredman sober, he has strong anxiety and craves the soup that will redeem him from his earthly pain. According to Bellman's Fredman, the only way to worship Bacchus is into death; the ultimate meaning of life is to be constantly intoxicated, day and night; and the kingdom of heaven is a rush so powerful that it destroys the consciousness of existence.