Clocks · Table clock
Alarm table-clock, gilt-bronze, 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
- Table clock
- Materials / technique
- Gilt-bronze case, brass plates, pierced brass hand, iron wheels of train, plain steel balance-wheel, steel alarm train.
- Dimensions
- Length: 11.4 cm; Depth: 8.2 cm; :
- Holding institution
- Victoria and Albert Museum, London
- Accession / object no.
- 391:1-1854
Record summary
Held and catalogued by Victoria and Albert Museum, London (object number 391:1-1854), this is a table 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-bronze case, brass plates, pierced brass hand, iron wheels of train, plain steel balance-wheel, steel alarm train. Recorded dimensions: Length: 11.4 cm; Depth: 8.2 cm; :. 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
V&A — Physical description
Case: The gilt-bronze case with cast and engraved decorations on sides, entitled GEOMETRIA, ASTOLOGIA, ARITHMETICA. Cast ornamental feet. Dial and Movement: Movement with horizontal dial and brass plates 10.2 cm square. Chapter-ring engraved on dial, 10.2 cm diameter, with hours in Roman, each with a touch-pin, and half- and quarter-hour marks. Central rotating alarm disc 4.8 cm diameter, with arabic hours (Germanic 2's). The whole dial and alarm disc decoratively engraved except for the two rings of figures. Rectangular hole outside X1/2 for inspecting the number on the count-wheel (hour last struck). Signed between VII and V on chapter-ring LEVY AIX in neat capitals later than 1680 and not quite in keeping with the rest of the dial. Ornate, pierced brass hand, possibly not original. Going train with brass spring-barrel and fusee and contrate wheel; the remaining wheels of the train are of iron. Verge escapement. Decorative brass balance-cock and bristle regulator arm, the latter now cut off short. Its pointer moving over a scale numbered 1 to 6 in arabic. The cock with a later, superposed plain brass bridge carrying a regulator arm with a pair of downward-projecting pins between which the (also later) balance-spring passes. Plain steel balance-wheel, probably original. Tocking-plate striking train with brass resting-barrel, pierced decorative detent, count-wheel and fanfly sheets, the remaining wheels of steel. The count-wheel coaxial with the great wheel of the striking train, and outside the backplate. Alarm train of steel throughout. The alarm bell hammer probably new. The movement back-plate signed in a very small escutcheon AM W. This plate also signed along bottom edge LEVY AIX in lettering similar to that on the dial. (Levy presumably added the balance-spring and regulator and cut short the bristle arm, and probably renewed the contrate wheel of the going train). The removable breastplate has three winding holes, the going train hole labelled W; the striking train S; the alarm train L.
Inscriptions & marks
LEVY AIX; AM W
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:Anchor (recoil) escapement
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