Instruments · Sundial and case
Brass sundial and shagreen case, England, 1695-1702, Thomas Tuttell.
- Maker / attribution
- Unrecorded in source
- Date
- 1695-1702
- Historical period
- Early Modern Horology (1600 – 1750)
- Country of origin
- England
- Place
- London
- Object type
- Sundial and case
- Dimensions
- Height: 6 3/8 in; Width: 4 in; Height: 4 1/2 in (Case); Width: 3 1/3 in (Case)
- Holding institution
- Victoria and Albert Museum, London
- Accession / object no.
- M.168&A-1938
Record summary
Held and catalogued by Victoria and Albert Museum, London (object number M.168&A-1938), this is a sundial and case, made in London, England, dated 1695-1702. The Atlas places it in the Early Modern Horology period (1600 – 1750) of its Instruments collection. Recorded dimensions: Height: 6 3/8 in; Width: 4 in; Height: 4 1/2 in (Case); Width: 3 1/3 in (Case). The record is illustrated with 3 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 — Summary
This sundial has both conventional and analemmatic dials. The latter can be set to a date to give the time without the need for a compass to point to the magnetic north pole. Tuttell was a celebrated London maker, one of the first to sell off-the-shelf instruments. He illustrated this design on his trade card. The dial is shown here with its original felt-lined shark skin case.
V&A — Physical description
Two rectangular dial-plates are hinged, the main dial numbered round the edge 'III-XII-VIII'. In the centre is engraved an eight-pointed compass on a field of floriate decration; the folding plate similarly decorated with a hole for the suspension of a plummet (now missing) and a scale. The dial is supported at its outer corners by two screw-feet; two spare feet are in the case.
V&A — Object history
The sundial is signed "THO.TUTTELL CHARING + LONDON FECIT". Thomas Tuttell was a celebrated mathematical instrument maker. He had two shops in London at the King's Arms and Globe at Charing Cross and the Royal Exchange in Cornhill between 1695 and 1702. This particular sundial is illustrated on one of Tuttell's trade cards. It is shown here with its original shagreen or shark skin case. Tuttell was apprenticed at the Clockmakers' Company in 1688 to Henry Wynne and freed in 1695. Though his career was short, he made several high-quality instruments. On the 22nd January 1702 Tuttell drowned while surveying the River Thames in his role as hydrographer to the King.
V&A gallery label
Metalware Gallery, 2004: DUAL SUNDIAL Sheet brass, cast elements, engraved and filled with black lacquer London, England; 1695-1702 Made by Thomas Tuttell (active 1695-1702) and signed 'THO.TUTTELL CHARING LONDON FECIT' This sundial has both conventional and analemmatic dials. The latter can be set to a date to give the time without the need for a compass to point to the magnetic north pole. Tuttell was a celebrated London maker, one of the first to sell off-the-shelf instruments. He illustrated this design on his trade card. The dial is shown here with its original felt-lined shark skin case. Miller Gift Museum no. M.168-1938
V&A gallery label
BADA 2004 Exhibition label: SUNDIAL Brass, England, late 17th century, Thomas Tuttell (active 1695-1702), London The sundial is signed "THO.TUTTELL CHARING + LONDON FECIT". He was a celebrated London maker who had two shops, one of which was in Charing Cross at the sign of the King's Arms. This particular sundial is illustrated on one of Tuttell's trade cards. It is shown here with its original shagreen case. The sundial has a horizontal dial for a given latitude and an analemmatic dial. An analemmatic sundial has a vertical pin, or gnomon, for casting a shadow. The gnomon is attached to a slider and set to the date in the year. The time is read by noting where the shadow crosses hour points laid out on an ellipse. M.168-1938
Historical context
Early Modern Horology (1600 – 1750)
Huygens' pendulum and balance spring transform accuracy; English makers develop the anchor and deadbeat escapements.
Pocket sundials, Butterfield dials and sandglasses remained essential companions to imperfect clocks; navigators used sandglasses and the log line; observatories began to combine telescopes with pendulum clocks.
Read the period in the timelineMore instruments from this periodEarlier: Renaissance Horology
Atlas type guide
Sundials and solar time-finders
A sundial tells time from the position of a shadow cast by a gnomon or style. Because the sun's apparent motion depends on latitude, every fixed dial is laid out for a particular latitude, and portable dials either carry a latitude scale or are made for one region. Sundials show local apparent solar time, which drifts against mean (clock) time by up to about sixteen minutes over the year — the equation of time.
Portable dials were the pocket instruments of the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries. Nuremberg and Augsburg workshops produced folding ivory diptych dials with inset compasses; English and French makers sold brass horizontal dials, ring dials and the Butterfield type; Japanese and Chinese makers had their own traditions of compass dials. After mechanical watches became reliable, dials remained in use for setting them, and nineteenth-century heliochronometers were built to correct directly for the equation of time.
What to look for
- The latitude engraved on the dial plate or a latitude arc on the gnomon — it shows where the dial was meant to be used.
- The type of hour lines: equal (equinoctial) hours, Italian or Babylonian hours counted from sunset or sunrise, or unequal temporal hours on early and Islamic instruments.
- An inset magnetic compass and whether a magnetic-declination mark is drawn on its card — a useful dating clue because declination changes over time.
- Maker's signatures and town marks: Nuremberg compass-makers (Kompassmacher) often struck a personal mark and the town's punch.
- Additional scales such as lunar volvelles, wind roses, perpetual calendars or lists of cities with their latitudes.
Dating clues
- Ivory diptych dials are characteristic of Nuremberg between about 1500 and 1700.
- Butterfield-type dials with a bird-shaped adjustable gnomon point to Paris workshops from the late seventeenth century onward.
- Equation-of-time tables engraved on the plate became common after the mid-seventeenth century, once pendulum clocks made the difference between solar and mean time obvious.
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:The history timeline
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