Clocks · Alarm tabernacle clock
Alarm Tabernacle clock, gilt brass case with engraved and cast decoration, German, late 16th Century.
- Maker / attribution
- Unrecorded in source
- Date
- 1575-1600
- Historical period
- Renaissance Horology (1400 – 1600)
- Country of origin
- Germany
- Place
- Germany
- Object type
- Alarm tabernacle clock
- Materials / technique
- Gilt brass case
- Dimensions
- Height: 24.1 cm; :
- Holding institution
- Victoria and Albert Museum, London
- Accession / object no.
- M.170-1938
- Credit line
- Given by W.E.Miller FSA
Record summary
Held and catalogued by Victoria and Albert Museum, London (object number M.170-1938), this is an alarm tabernacle clock, made in Germany, dated 1575-1600. The Atlas places it in the Renaissance Horology period (1400 – 1600) of its Clocks collection. Materials and techniques recorded by the source: Gilt brass case. Recorded dimensions: Height: 24.1 cm; :. The record is illustrated with 1 photograph.
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
V&A — Summary
A gilt-brass square clock surmounted by a bell, the case engraved with strapwork arabesques. The steel dial has touch pins for reading the time at night. The domed top supports a classical male figure with spear and shield. German, late 16th century
V&A — Physical description
Case: Gilt brass case with splayed base (13.6 cm square), engraved with strapwork arabesques; the case, similarly engraved, is of square plan with decorated three-quarter columns at its corners. The bell is set on top of the case beneath two arched straps of gilt brass which terminate in cast demi-figures of Pegasus; the intersection of these arches is surmounted by a cast modern figure of a man in armour with a shield and formerly with a spear. Dial: Dial applied to the front engraved panel, 6.3 cm diameter. Outer chapter ring I to XII in Roman, each hour with a touch-pin, and with half-hour marks. Within this, 13 to 24 (Germanic Z's) in arabic. Central alarm disc with 1 to 12 clockwise in arabic, and engraved centre. Single steel hand, with tail. Dial for strike on rear panel, 6.3 cm diameter, numbered 1 to 12 in arabic, and with touch-pins. The dial centre engraved. Its hand missing. Slot with projecting pin for release of count-wheel when required. Movement: Frame and all wheels of iron, except the contrate wheel and crown wheel of the going train (later renewals). Going train in front of case, with fixed mainspring, now without a barrel. Stop-work (lug onh winding square now missing) permits 2 and three-quarter turns of winding. Drive to hour wheel by reduction gearing (20:84) from second wheel, which rotated three times as fast as great wheel. Bow with verge escapement, but the bob pendulum attached to the verge now broken off. Signs of former lower potence for vertical verge. The present horizontal verge worn and defective. Locking-plate striking, with resting-barrel and spring within it. Stopwork permits 4 three-quarter turns of winding. Drive to count-wheel by reduction gearing from second wheel of striking train. Vertical bell-hammer shaft. Small, renewed alarm train at top right of front part of movement, with wind through the side panel, this train also with fixed spring and stopwork. Release mechanism.
V&A — Object history
One of fourteen clocks and sundials given by Mr W E Miller 1938
Historical context
Renaissance Horology (1400 – 1600)
Spring power makes clocks portable; Nuremberg and Augsburg produce the first watches; the Prague Orloj is built.
Spring power made the domestic clock portable. Augsburg and Nuremberg produced gilt-brass table clocks, often with astronomical dials and alarms; weight-driven Gothic wall clocks and English lantern clocks served households. Clocks of this period have foliot or balance-wheel control and usually only an hour hand.
Read the period in the timelineMore clocks from this periodEarlier: Medieval Period
Atlas type guide
Bracket, table and spring-driven clocks
Spring-driven clocks freed timekeeping from the hanging weight. The coiled mainspring, documented from the fifteenth century, made portable table clocks possible; to even out its declining force, makers used the fusee, a conical pulley connected to the barrel by a gut line or chain. Renaissance table clocks from Augsburg and Nuremberg — drum-shaped, square or tower-shaped in gilt brass — were luxury scientific objects, often with astronomical dials and alarms.
After the pendulum, English makers developed the bracket clock: a wooden case with a carrying handle, a short pendulum with a verge escapement, and often repeating work to sound the hours on demand at night. Later examples use the anchor escapement. In the nineteenth century, 'table clock' became a broad term for spring clocks of every nationality.
What to look for
- A fusee in the movement (cone-shaped pulley) and the type of line — gut or chain.
- Verge escapement with a short bob pendulum, often with a decoratively engraved backplate.
- Repeat cords or buttons that make the clock strike again on demand.
- Gilt-brass engraved cases and horizontal dials on Renaissance pieces.
- Case shapes: inverted bell, bell top, break-arch, lancet or balloon.
Dating clues
- Drum and tower table clocks: c. 1520–1650.
- Ebony veneered English bracket clocks with verge escapements: c. 1670–1800.
- Engraved backplates were usual on English clocks until c. 1800, then generally plain.
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.
Read next:FuseeAnchor (recoil) escapement
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