Clocks · Cuckoo clock
Cuckoo clock by Trenkle-Uhren GmbH, c. 2014
- Maker / attribution
- Trenkle-Uhren GmbH (Maker)
- Date
- c. 2014
- Historical period
- Contemporary Horology (2010 – Present)
- Country of origin
- Unrecorded in source
- Object type
- Cuckoo clock
- Holding institution
- Badisches Landesmuseum Karlsruhe
- Accession / object no.
- 2015/149 (Inventarnummer)
- Credit line
- Badisches Landesmuseum Karlsruhe
- Catalogue title (original)
- Quarz-Kuckucksuhr (German)
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Record summary
Held and catalogued by Badisches Landesmuseum Karlsruhe (object number 2015/149 (Inventarnummer)), this is a cuckoo clock by Trenkle-Uhren GmbH, dated c. 2014. The Atlas places it in the Contemporary Horology period (2010 – Present) of its Clocks collection. 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
Catalogue description from Badisches Landesmuseum Karlsruhe
Der Familienbetrieb Trenkle ist auf die Fertigung von Kuckucksuhren und anderen Uhrenformen aus dem Schwarzwald spezialisiert. Seit über 30 Jahren stellt man an der „Deutschen Uhrenstraße“ Modelle für jeden Geschmack her, wobei Technik und Gestaltung, Tradition und Innovation unkonventionelle Verbindungen eingehen. Hier verschmelzen schweizerisches Chalet und Alpenblumen mit Schwarzwälder Trachtenmotiven und Kuckuck. Die wechselnden 12 Melodien werden durch einen Chip eingespeist. Der Vogelruf der Quarzuhr wird durch Lichtsensor nachts ausgeschaltet. Die Uhr trägt die alte Idee des Figurenautomaten mit den im späten 19. Jh. ausgeprägten Schwarzwald-Stereotypen wie Bollenhut und Mühlrad weiter.
Shown in the original language of the source catalogue. An editor-reviewed English translation has not yet been published; we do not publish machine translations as authoritative text.
Historical context
Contemporary Horology (2010 – Present)
Silicon components, connected watches, optical-lattice research clocks and a thriving independent scene.
Today time is distributed by satellite navigation and networks with nanosecond accuracy, while mechanical clocks are made as art, design and craft objects. Contemporary designers explore the clock as sculpture and kinetic art.
Read the period in the timelineMore clocks from this periodEarlier: Mechanical Renaissance
Atlas type guide
Black Forest and cuckoo clocks
Clockmaking spread through the Black Forest in south-west Germany in the late seventeenth century as a winter occupation for farming families. Early clocks had wooden plates and wheels and a foliot ('Waaguhr') or short pendulum, with a painted wooden shield dial; pedlars (Uhrenträger) carried them across Europe. The cuckoo clock, which imitates the bird's call with two small bellows-driven pipes, appeared in the mid-eighteenth century.
The industry was organised around Furtwangen, Triberg, Schwenningen and Lenzkirch. The Furtwangen clockmaking school (1850) introduced the railway-house cuckoo clock design, and from the late nineteenth century factories such as Junghans, Kienzle and Hamburg-Amerikanische Uhrenfabrik produced clocks by the million. The German Clock Museum in Furtwangen preserves the region's history.
What to look for
- Wooden plates and wheels (earlier) versus brass movements (later).
- Painted shield dials (Lackschilduhr) with floral or figurative decoration.
- Cuckoo bellows and pipes, the carved 'railway house' or hunting-scene case.
- Trademarks and movement stamps of Black Forest factories.
Dating clues
- Wooden-wheeled foliot clocks: c. 1680–1750.
- Painted shield clocks: c. 1780–1880.
- Railway-house cuckoo clocks: after 1850; carved hunting-style cases after c. 1860.
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:FoliotAnchor (recoil) escapement
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