George Marsh Scroll and Pillar Clock, c. 1830

Record summary

Catalogued by LiveAuctioneers auction archive (lot Item 137355398), this is a clock, dated c. 1830. The Atlas places it in the Precision & Scientific Horology period (1750 – 1850) of its Clocks collection. Materials and techniques recorded by the source: enamel, glass, mahogany, gilt. 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

Atlas type guide

Japanese clocks (wadokei)

Mechanical clocks reached Japan with European missionaries in the sixteenth century. During the Edo period (1603–1868) Japanese makers adapted them to the native system of unequal temporal hours: daylight and night were each divided into six hours whose length changed with the seasons. Clockmakers solved this with movable hour numerals, double foliots (one for day, one for night) or, on pillar clocks, sliding hour plaques along a vertical scale.

Common forms include the lantern-style yagura-dokei on a pyramidal stand, the bracket-like makura-dokei, and the narrow shaku-dokei (pillar clock) whose weight-driven pointer descends a scale. The temporal system was abolished in 1873 when Japan adopted Western time reckoning, and wadokei production ceased soon after.

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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