Clocks · Clock
Guilmet Figural 8 Day Mystery Clock, c. 1880
- Maker / attribution
- Unrecorded in source
- Date
- c. 1880
- Historical period
- Industrial Revolution (1850 – 1900)
- Country of origin
- Unrecorded in source
- Object type
- Clock
- Materials / technique
- brass, marble
- Auction house
- LiveAuctioneers auction archive
- Lot
- Item 21615535
- Credit line
- Auction lot record: lot 101, Antique Clock Auction, Fontaine's Auction Gallery (2013), via LiveAuctioneers
- Catalogue title (original)
- Guilmet Figural 8 Day Mystery Clock (English)
View the source record (auction lot) ↗ (opens another website in a new tab)Suggest a correction
Record summary
Catalogued by LiveAuctioneers auction archive (lot Item 21615535), this is a clock, dated c. 1880. The Atlas places it in the Industrial Revolution period (1850 – 1900) of its Clocks collection. Materials and techniques recorded by the source: brass, marble. 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 — Fontaine's Auction Gallery
Guilmet Figural Time And Strike 8 Day Mystery Clock. Circa 1880. Heavy black incised marble mantle case with brass handles on the sides. Has a marble dial with etched numerals and brass bezel, beveled door glass and gilt hands. Standing on top is a gilded figure holding a long pendulum with a beveled glass bob. The pendulum swings, which rocks the figure slightly and engages the escapement; the platform and plate are numbered 4737. The 8 day, half hour time and bell-strike movement bears the marks of Guilmet and is numbered 4296. The case and the movement are in very clean condition. 24 in. high
Historical context
Industrial Revolution (1850 – 1900)
American interchangeable-parts manufacture; railroad time standards; Swiss and German factory systems.
Factory production transformed the clock into an everyday object. American makers (Seth Thomas, Ansonia, Waterbury) and German factories (Junghans, Gustav Becker, Lenzkirch) sold millions of shelf, wall and alarm clocks worldwide; France produced standardised Paris movements and carriage clocks; electric time distribution began.
Read the period in the timelineMore clocks from this periodEarlier: Precision & Scientific Horology
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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