Clocks · Spring-driven pendulum clock; pendulum clock
Japanese Clock
- Maker / attribution
- Unrecorded in source
- Date
- 1600–1800
- Historical period
- Early Modern Horology (1600 – 1750)
- Country of origin
- Japan
- Place
- Japan
- Object type
- Spring-driven pendulum clock; pendulum clock
- Materials / technique
- enamel, glass, steel (metal), brass (copper, zinc alloy), wood (unidentified)
- Dimensions
- overall: 192 mm x 140 mm x 102 mm,
- Holding institution
- Science Museum Group, London
- Accession / object no.
- 1930-663
- Credit line
- Sotheby's; Harrison, P.L.
- Catalogue title (original)
- Japanese Clock (English)
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Record summary
Held and catalogued by Science Museum Group, London (object number 1930-663), this is a spring-driven pendulum clock; pendulum clock, made in Japan, dated 1600–1800. The Atlas places it in the Early Modern Horology period (1600 – 1750) of its Clocks collection. Materials and techniques recorded by the source: enamel, glass, steel (metal), brass (copper, zinc alloy), wood (unidentified). Recorded dimensions: overall: 192 mm x 140 mm x 102 mm. 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
Catalogue description — Science Museum Group
Japanese Clock, with bob pendulum, spring driven, adjustable indicators, enamelled, with hood (one sheet of glass cracked), unsigned, 1600-1800.
Historical context
Early Modern Horology (1600 – 1750)
Huygens' pendulum and balance spring transform accuracy; English makers develop the anchor and deadbeat escapements.
Huygens's pendulum (1656–57) improved clock accuracy from about a quarter of an hour to under a minute a day. The anchor escapement (c. 1670) and the long seconds pendulum created the longcase clock; London makers such as Fromanteel, Knibb, Tompion and Quare led European clockmaking, and French makers created the Boulle pendule.
Read the period in the timelineMore clocks from this periodEarlier: Renaissance Horology
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.
What to look for
- Hour numerals in the twelve zodiac animal signs or numbers nine to four.
- Movable hour plaques or a dial with adjustable hour markers.
- Double foliot balances at the top of the movement.
- Brass movements with fine engraving and lacquered wooden cases.
Dating clues
- Double foliots appear from the late seventeenth century.
- Pillar clocks are typical of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
- Production ended after the 1873 calendar reform.
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:FoliotVerge escapement
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