Clocks · Table clock
Table clock, 1929
- Maker / attribution
- Unrecorded in source
- Date
- 1929
- Historical period
- Golden Age of Mechanical Watchmaking (1900 – 1945)
- Country of origin
- Unrecorded in source
- Object type
- Table clock
- Dimensions
- Höhe: 21.00 cm, Breite: 17.50 cm, Tiefe: 7.50 cm
- Holding institution
- German Clock Museum
- Accession / object no.
- 2020-018 (inventory number) 59664 (technical number)
- Credit line
- German Clock Museum
- Catalogue title (original)
- Tischuhr, Entwurf: Hermann Esch, Junghans, Schramberg, 1929 (German)
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Record summary
Held and catalogued by German Clock Museum (object number 2020-018 (inventory number) 59664 (technical number)), this is a table clock, dated 1929. The Atlas places it in the Golden Age of Mechanical Watchmaking period (1900 – 1945) of its Clocks collection. Recorded dimensions: Höhe: 21.00 cm, Breite: 17.50 cm, Tiefe: 7.50 cm. The record is illustrated with 3 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 from German Clock Museum
In den 1920er Jahren revolutionierte das Bauhaus unsere Vorstellung vom Wohnen, aber auch die Gestaltung und Funktion vieler Alltagsgegenstände. Doch ausgerechnet Uhren haben die Lehrer und Schüler des Bauhauses nicht entworfen. Doch es existieren Uhren im Bauhaus-Stil, beispielsweise diese des Mannheimer Architekten Hermann Esch (1879-1956). Esch war Mitglied des Deutschen Werkbunds, mit seinem Streben nach einer Verbindung von Form und Funktion ein wichtiger Wegbereiter des Bauhauses. Die schmucklose rechteckige Form des schwarz lackierten Holzgehäuses mit dem verchromten Rahmen für das Uhrenglas passt perfekt zu den Stahlrohrmöbeln des Bauhauses. Kein Wunder, dass dieser Uhrentyp auf der Internationalen Bauausstellung 1931 neben den legendären Typenmöbeln des Stararchitekten Walter Gropius zu sehen war. Auch die Einrichtungstipps des Frankfurter Registers für die Wohnungen im Bauhaus-Stil empfehlen Hermann Eschs Uhren. Gebaut wurden diese Uhren im Schwarzwald, von den Junghans Uhrenfabriken in Schramberg. (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 An editor-reviewed English translation has not yet been published; we do not publish machine translations as authoritative text.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
Golden Age of Mechanical Watchmaking (1900 – 1945)
The wristwatch displaces the pocket watch; waterproof cases, self-winding and grand complications.
Between 1900 and 1945 clocks were electrified: master-clock systems ran factories and offices, synchronous mains clocks entered homes, and the Shortt free-pendulum clock set new standards of accuracy before the first quartz clocks (1927). Art Deco design reshaped mantel and table clocks.
Read the period in the timelineMore clocks from this periodEarlier: Industrial Revolution
Atlas type guide
Bracket, table and spring-driven clocks
Spring-driven clocks freed timekeeping from the hanging weight. The coiled mainspring, documented from the fifteenth century, made portable table clocks possible; to even out its declining force, makers used the fusee, a conical pulley connected to the barrel by a gut line or chain. Renaissance table clocks from Augsburg and Nuremberg — drum-shaped, square or tower-shaped in gilt brass — were luxury scientific objects, often with astronomical dials and alarms.
After the pendulum, English makers developed the bracket clock: a wooden case with a carrying handle, a short pendulum with a verge escapement, and often repeating work to sound the hours on demand at night. Later examples use the anchor escapement. In the nineteenth century, 'table clock' became a broad term for spring clocks of every nationality.
What to look for
- A fusee in the movement (cone-shaped pulley) and the type of line — gut or chain.
- Verge escapement with a short bob pendulum, often with a decoratively engraved backplate.
- Repeat cords or buttons that make the clock strike again on demand.
- Gilt-brass engraved cases and horizontal dials on Renaissance pieces.
- Case shapes: inverted bell, bell top, break-arch, lancet or balloon.
Dating clues
- Drum and tower table clocks: c. 1520–1650.
- Ebony veneered English bracket clocks with verge escapements: c. 1670–1800.
- Engraved backplates were usual on English clocks until c. 1800, then generally plain.
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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