
Clocks · Clock
Bouquet of Lilies Clock
- Maker / attribution
- Michael Perkhin (creator); House of Fabergé (manufacturer)
- Date
- 1899
- Historical period
- Industrial Revolution (1850 – 1900)
- Country of origin
- Russia
- Object type
- Clock
- Materials / technique
- platinum, gold, silver, diamond, onyx
- Dimensions
- height: 27 centimetre
- Holding institution
- Moscow Kremlin Museums
- Credit line
- Object data: Wikidata (CC0), holding collection Moscow Kremlin Museums
- Catalogue title (original)
- Bouquet of Lilies Clock (English)
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Record summary
Held and catalogued by Moscow Kremlin Museums, this is a clock by Michael Perkhin, made in Russia, dated 1899. The Atlas places it in the Industrial Revolution period (1850 – 1900) of its Clocks collection. Materials and techniques recorded by the source: platinum, gold, silver, diamond, onyx. Recorded dimensions: height: 27 centimetre. 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
Wikipedia — Bouquet of Lilies Clock (Fabergé egg) (CC BY-SA 4.0)
The Bouquet of Lilies Clock egg is a jewelled Easter egg made under the supervision of the Russian jeweller Peter Carl Fabergé in 1899 for Tsar Nicholas II as an Easter gift to his wife, the Tsaritsa Alexandra Fyodorovna. It is currently held in the Kremlin Armoury Museum in Moscow, and it is one of the few imperial Fabergé eggs that were never sold after the Russian Revolution.
Historical context
Industrial Revolution (1850 – 1900)
American interchangeable-parts manufacture; railroad time standards; Swiss and German factory systems.
Factory production transformed the clock into an everyday object. American makers (Seth Thomas, Ansonia, Waterbury) and German factories (Junghans, Gustav Becker, Lenzkirch) sold millions of shelf, wall and alarm clocks worldwide; France produced standardised Paris movements and carriage clocks; electric time distribution began.
Read the period in the timelineMore clocks from this periodEarlier: Precision & Scientific Horology
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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