Clocks · Clock
Iron clock by Erhard Liechti, Winterthur, 1584
- Maker / attribution
- Erhard Liechti (maker (named in the museum's caption)); Großherzoglich Badische Uhrmacherschule (former collection (listed in the maker field by the museum))
- Date
- 1584
- Historical period
- Renaissance Horology (1400 – 1600)
- Country of origin
- Switzerland
- Place
- Winterthur
- Object type
- Clock
- Holding institution
- German Clock Museum
- Accession / object no.
- 29720
- Catalogue title (original)
- Eisenuhr, Erhard Liechti, Winterthur, 1584 (German)
Editor's note
The museum's maker field names the Grand Ducal Baden Clockmaking School (founded in Furtwangen in 1850), which cannot have made a clock dated 1584; the museum's own caption reads 'Eisenuhr, Erhard Liechti, Winterthur, 1584 (Deutsches Uhrenmuseum Furtwangen)'. The school's collection is the origin of the Deutsches Uhrenmuseum.View the source record ↗ (opens another website in a new tab)Suggest a correction
Record summary
Held and catalogued by German Clock Museum (object number 29720), this is a clock by Erhard Liechti, made in Winterthur, Switzerland, dated 1584. The Atlas places it in the Renaissance Horology period (1400 – 1600) 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 German Clock Museum (German)
Eisenuhr, Erhard Liechti, Winterthur, 1584. (Deutsches Uhrenmuseum Furtwangen)
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 An editor-reviewed English translation has not yet been published; we do not publish machine translations as authoritative text.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
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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