Clocks · Clock cover
Clock cover by Albrecht Dürer, France, 1530
- Maker / attribution
- Albrecht Dürer
- Date
- 1530
- Historical period
- Renaissance Horology (1400 – 1600)
- Country of origin
- France
- Place
- France
- Object type
- Clock cover
- Materials / technique
- Gilt brass, engraved
- Dimensions
- Diameter: 3.25 in
- Holding institution
- Victoria and Albert Museum, London
- Accession / object no.
- M.21-1937
- Credit line
- Given by The Salisbury Museum
- Catalogue title (original)
- Descent into Limbo
Record summary
Held and catalogued by Victoria and Albert Museum, London (object number M.21-1937), this is a clock cover by Albrecht Dürer, made in France, dated 1530. The Atlas places it in the Renaissance Horology period (1400 – 1600) of its Clocks collection. Materials and techniques recorded by the source: Gilt brass, engraved. Recorded dimensions: Diameter: 3.25 in. The record is illustrated with 2 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
A concave gilt-brass cover for a clock watch engraved inside with the date 1530 and a representation of Christ's Descent into Limbo after the print by Albrecht Dûrer, 1512. The subject was evidently cherished by the original owner of the watch which has been separated from the cover that was originally made to protect the watch movement.
V&A — Physical description
A circular concave cover to a clock watch; the outer surface is engraved with radiating flutes on a matted ground. The inside is engraved with The Descent into Limbo after Durer with the addition of another head of a devil on the left of the design and the date 1530 replacing the original date 1512. The remains of the engraver's signature 'Van..' has been cut off to fit a smaller watch.
V&A — Historical context
This cover protected the mechanism of a clock watch from damage when in transit.
V&A — Object history
The clock watch cover was transferred from the Salisbury, South Wiltshire and Blackmore Museum
V&A — Production note
The engraving is a copy of Durer's print from the Little Passion series illustrating Christ's Descent into Limbo, 1512
Inscriptions & marks
1530; Van
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
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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