Clocks · Clock
Clock, Germany, c. 1584
- Maker / attribution
- Unrecorded in source
- Date
- c. 1584
- Historical period
- Renaissance Horology (1400 – 1600)
- Country of origin
- Germany
- Place
- Germany
- Object type
- Clock
- Materials / technique
- Engraved corners and bottom of case pierced with holes for chains and weights.
- Dimensions
- Height: 10 in; Width: 5 in; Length: 5.5 in
- Holding institution
- Victoria and Albert Museum, London
- Accession / object no.
- 477-1907
Record summary
Held and catalogued by Victoria and Albert Museum, London (object number 477-1907), this is a clock, made in Germany, dated c. 1584. The Atlas places it in the Renaissance Horology period (1400 – 1600) of its Clocks collection. Materials and techniques recorded by the source: Engraved corners and bottom of case pierced with holes for chains and weights. Recorded dimensions: Height: 10 in; Width: 5 in; Length: 5.5 in. 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
V&A — Physical description
Rectangular clock case with engraved foliate corners, and a domed top pierced with strapwork and foliage. The doors of the case are decorated with emblematic figures inscribed 'FIDES' and 'CHARITAS'. The front three dials, the princpial of which enclosing a disc marked with quarters and carrying a stell point to mark the time. The works are steel, and have been adapted for a pendulum. The bottom is pierced with holes for chains and weights. The reverse has been replaced by a sheet of brass engraved with diagonal lines.
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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