Clocks · Automaton clock
Automaton table clock
- Maker / attribution
- William Barker (Made by)
- Date
- 1780–1790
- Historical period
- Precision & Scientific Horology (1750 – 1850)
- Country of origin
- England
- Place
- London (England)
- Object type
- Automaton clock
- Materials / technique
- metal
- Dimensions
- Height: 76 centimetres Width: 46.50 centimetres Depth: 34 centimetres
- Holding institution
- British Museum
- Accession / object no.
- 1958,1006.1969
- Credit line
- British Museum, London
- Catalogue title (original)
- Automaton table clock (English)
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Record summary
Held and catalogued by British Museum (object number 1958,1006.1969), this is an automaton clock by William Barker, made in London (England), dated 1780–1790. The Atlas places it in the Precision & Scientific Horology period (1750 – 1850) of its Clocks collection. Materials and techniques recorded by the source: metal. Recorded dimensions: Height: 76 centimetres Width: 46.50 centimetres Depth: 34 centimetres. The record is illustrated with 6 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
Description — British Museum
Automaton table clock; musical and mechanical movement in rectangular case; front with pierced and painted 'willow-pattern' panel depicting moving river scene with figures crossing bridge; surmounted by model of a garden fountain of vase-shape with eight dolphins suspending spirally turning glass columns representing water; small timepiece watch with circular white enamelled dial above, with blue enamel panels to sides; all surmounted by glass mirror in chased ormolu frame with ruby glass beaded border; rectangular casket-shaped base with panels to back and sides overlaid with chased ormolu plaques with lions' masks and scrolling foliage; surmounted by balustraded gallery with tessellated pavement and flowering plants in hardstones around base of fountain on ormolu elephant feet; green baize-covered rectangular stepped base with ormolu scroll feet.
Curator's comments — British Museum
For a similar clock see Christie's, London, 2/10/1991. lot 84.
Inscriptions & marks
inscription; Wm. Barker 1943 [on watch movement]
Provenance
Previous owner/ex-collection:, Courtenay Adrian Ilbert; Donated by:, Gilbert Edgar
Historical context
Precision & Scientific Horology (1750 – 1850)
Harrison solves longitude; Mudge invents the lever; Breguet's Paris workshop defines the modern watch.
The age of the deadbeat escapement, compensated pendulums and observatory regulators. Domestic clocks spread through the middle classes: English longcase and bracket clocks, French gilt-bronze mantel clocks, Viennese Biedermeier wall clocks, Black Forest painted-shield clocks, and the first American shelf clocks.
Read the period in the timelineMore clocks from this periodEarlier: Early Modern Horology
Atlas type guide
Astronomical, musical and automaton clocks
Astronomical clocks display more than the hour: the positions of the sun and moon in the zodiac, the phase of the moon, the calendar, sometimes the planets and eclipses. From Richard of Wallingford's and Giovanni de' Dondi's fourteenth-century clocks to the Prague Orloj and the Strasbourg cathedral clocks, they demonstrated the order of the cosmos. Renaissance makers in Augsburg and Nuremberg built celestial globe clocks and monstrance clocks as princely treasures.
Automaton and musical clocks entertained as well as informed: figures move, birds sing, organs and carillons play tunes from pinned cylinders. The eighteenth-century trade with China ('sing-songs') and Ottoman Turkey created a market for elaborate English, Swiss and French automata.
What to look for
- Subsidiary dials for moon phase, calendar, zodiac and planetary positions.
- Celestial globes or armillary spheres turned by the movement.
- Pinned cylinders, bellows and pipes or bells for music.
- Figures on cams and levers; separate trains for automaton work.
Dating clues
- Renaissance astronomical table and globe clocks: c. 1550–1650.
- English and Swiss automaton clocks for the Chinese market: c. 1760–1820.
- Picture clocks (clockwork pictures) are mostly nineteenth century.
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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