Clocks · Clock
19th/20th C. Chinese Qing Imperial Pendulum Clock, c. 1900
- Maker / attribution
- Unrecorded in source
- Date
- c. 1900
- Historical period
- Golden Age of Mechanical Watchmaking (1900 – 1945)
- Country of origin
- Unrecorded in source
- Object type
- Clock
- Materials / technique
- enamel, turquoise, champlevé
- Auction house
- LiveAuctioneers auction archive
- Lot
- Item 11706794
- Credit line
- Auction lot record: lot 442, Asian Antiques & Fine Art, 888 Auctions (2012), via LiveAuctioneers
- Catalogue title (original)
- 19th/20th C. Chinese Qing Imperial Pendulum Clock (English)
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Record summary
Catalogued by LiveAuctioneers auction archive (lot Item 11706794), this is a clock, dated c. 1900. The Atlas places it in the Golden Age of Mechanical Watchmaking period (1900 – 1945) of its Clocks collection. Materials and techniques recorded by the source: enamel, turquoise, champlevé. The record is illustrated with 4 photographs.
Assembled from the source record's structured fields. Dates and attributions are given as the source states them; where a field is missing the Atlas leaves it blank rather than estimating.
Catalogue description
Lot description — 888 Auctions
A rare and genuine antique French Gilt-Bronze and Champleve Enamel Clock, Circa 1900; Case: Of four-glass form, embellished on the front and sides with panels of polychrome enamel on a turquoise ground, its form inspired by the classic architecture displayed in the porticos of ancient Greece and Rome, onyx base, surmounted by a twin handled urn and six finials, 8.25 cm (3 1/4 ") enamel dial with a surround decorated champleve enamel (retailers name on the dial mostly wiped off), mercury pendulum, approx. 42 cm (16 1/2") high; Movement: circular plated movement stamped C.H. Paris A1, marked MADE IN FRANCE and # 2695 4.4, 8-day time and half-hour strike on a coiled gong, 19th/20th Century, exported during the late Qing Dynasty; Provenance: a private collector that is/was a NAWCC (National Association of Watch & Clock Collectors, Inc.) member; Chan Collection, Toronto Remarks: The turquoise champleve enamel indicates that the clock was made for the Chinese market during the early 1900's. French clocks of this design are rare. A very similar clock is in the Imperial Clock Collection of the Palace Museum in the Forbidden City of Beijing; similar to Imperial Chinese clocks featured in a book on clocks of the imperial collection (pp. 205); book not included
Historical context
Golden Age of Mechanical Watchmaking (1900 – 1945)
The wristwatch displaces the pocket watch; waterproof cases, self-winding and grand complications.
Between 1900 and 1945 clocks were electrified: master-clock systems ran factories and offices, synchronous mains clocks entered homes, and the Shortt free-pendulum clock set new standards of accuracy before the first quartz clocks (1927). Art Deco design reshaped mantel and table clocks.
Read the period in the timelineMore clocks from this periodEarlier: Industrial Revolution
Atlas type guide
Domestic clocks
A clock combines four systems: a source of power (falling weight, coiled spring, or later electricity), a gear train that divides time, an escapement and oscillator that regulate it (foliot, pendulum or balance), and an indicating system of dial and hands or a bell. Its history runs from the large iron weight-driven clocks of the late thirteenth century to Renaissance spring-driven table clocks, the pendulum revolution of 1656, the factory clocks of the nineteenth century and electric and quartz clocks of the twentieth.
Domestic clocks also reflect regional furniture and decorative traditions — English longcase and bracket clocks, French pendules, Viennese regulators, Black Forest and American shelf clocks — and therefore record changing tastes as much as technical progress.
What to look for
- How the clock is powered: weights, spring barrel, fusee, electric coil.
- The oscillator: foliot, short pendulum, long seconds pendulum or balance.
- Whether it strikes: hour only (count wheel) or hours and quarters (rack striking).
- The maker or retailer's name on dial and movement, and any factory trademarks.
- Signs of alteration — replaced dials, converted escapements, 'married' cases.
Dating clues
- Before 1656 clocks used foliots or balances; after, most domestic clocks have pendulums.
- Anchor escapements spread after c. 1670; minute hands became common at the same time.
- Factory production in America and Germany transformed prices after c. 1840.
General guidance written by the Atlas editors about this kind of object. It is not a statement about this particular piece; for that, rely on the source record above and on physical examination.
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