Clocks · Clock
Early wooden wheel clock, Black Forest around 1750
- Maker / attribution
- Unrecorded in source
- Date
- 1750
- Historical period
- Precision & Scientific Horology (1750 – 1850)
- Country of origin
- Germany
- Object type
- Clock
- Materials / technique
- glass, iron
- Auction house
- Invaluable auction listings
- Lot
- Lot 2D69F34E28
- Credit line
- Auction lot record: lot 5376, Auction Antiques&Collectibles, Henry's Auktionshaus (2026), via Invaluable
- Catalogue title (original)
- Early wooden wheel clock, Black Forest around 1750 (English)
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Record summary
Catalogued by Invaluable auction listings (lot Lot 2D69F34E28), this is a clock, made in Germany, dated 1750. The Atlas places it in the Precision & Scientific Horology period (1750 – 1850) of its Clocks collection. Materials and techniques recorded by the source: glass, iron. The record is illustrated with 4 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
Lot description — Henry's Auktionshaus
, painted shield (preserved due to age), with visible balance beam with balancing weight, wooden wheels and wooden traps, alarm clock on glass bell, drive via cords, weights and counterweights, back wall missing, wooden escapement wheel with iron pins, left old, shield attachment sec., wall bracket replaced,wooden work cage supplemented at at earlier time, with installation of the old wheels, H. approx. 37cm, condition of movement/housing 4 . German Description: Frühe Holzräderuhr, Schwarzwald um 1750, bemaltes Schild (altersbedingt erhalten), mit sichtbarem Waagbalken mit Ausgleichsgewicht, Holzräder und Holzfallen, Weckerschlag auf Glasglocke, Antrieb über Schnüre, Gewichte und Gegengewichte, Rückwand fehlt, hölzernes Hemmungsrad mit Eisenstiften, alt belassen, Schildbefestigung sek.,Wandhalterung ersetzt, hölzerner Werkkäfig in früherer Zeit ergänzt, mit Einbau der alten Räder, H. ca. 37cm, WZ/GZ 4
Historical context
Precision & Scientific Horology (1750 – 1850)
Harrison solves longitude; Mudge invents the lever; Breguet's Paris workshop defines the modern watch.
The age of the deadbeat escapement, compensated pendulums and observatory regulators. Domestic clocks spread through the middle classes: English longcase and bracket clocks, French gilt-bronze mantel clocks, Viennese Biedermeier wall clocks, Black Forest painted-shield clocks, and the first American shelf clocks.
Read the period in the timelineMore clocks from this periodEarlier: Early Modern Horology
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:Anchor (recoil) escapement
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