Clocks · Table-Clock
Table-Clock, Germany, 1600–1625
- Maker / attribution
- Unrecorded in source
- Date
- 1600–1625
- Historical period
- Early Modern Horology (1600 – 1750)
- Country of origin
- Germany
- Place
- Southern Germany
- Object type
- Table-Clock
- Materials / technique
- Gilt copper, brass, steel, silk
- Dimensions
- Height: 35.5 cm; Width: 18.7 cm; Depth: 16.5 cm
- Holding institution
- Victoria and Albert Museum, London
- Accession / object no.
- 636-1865
- Credit line
- Purchased from the Soulages Collection, 1856
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Record summary
Held and catalogued by Victoria and Albert Museum, London (object number 636-1865), this is a table-clock, made in Southern Germany, dated 1600–1625. The Atlas places it in the Early Modern Horology period (1600 – 1750) of its Clocks collection. Materials and techniques recorded by the source: Gilt copper, brass, steel, silk. Recorded dimensions: Height: 35.5 cm; Width: 18.7 cm; Depth: 16.5 cm. The record is illustrated with 5 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
Summary — Victoria and Albert Museum
A table clock formed as a pillar supporting a globe on an hexagonal pedestal surmounted by a bell on which the hours are marked. At the base of the pillar is the figure of a standing Turk, South German, abour 1580. The figure of a Turk is a reference to the Venetian victory over the Turks at the Battle of Lepanto, 1571. From the Soulages Collection, 1856.
Physical description — Victoria and Albert Museum
Case and Dial: Gilt copper and brass. Hexagonal case, the vertical portions engraved, the sloping sides cast and chased, and including an arcaded gallery lined with red silk. The case is supported by six large feet and surmounted by a bearded figure of a Turk, with sword in right hand and upraised left hand which formerly held a spear or pointer. A chased vertical column supporting a globe with a silver equatorial hour-ring marked I to XII with stars at the half-hours; this globed framed in a fixed cast and chased vertical ring. The hour was formerly indicated by the tip of the Turk's spear or pointer, but is now shown by a curved iron pointer screwed to the vertical ring. Movement: Mounted between a hexagonal plate and a circular brass disc 7.3 cm in diameter. Going train of brass, with fusee of 5 turns and chain, verge escapement, steel balance-wheel and now with a balance-spring of few turns and a simple regulator. Bridge balance-cock with part of a ring cut away to show a "pendulum" action with a disc attached to a spoke of the balance-wheel. A 22T wheel on the fusee arbor engages with a 48T-wheel at the bottom of the vertical arbor which rotates once in 12 hours and passes up the column to the globe above its top. The star wheel for strike unlocking is fixed to this arbor. Striking train of brass, of the count-wheel type, with resting barrels, the count-wheel cut for a sequence 1 to 12.
Brief description — Victoria and Albert Museum
Table-clock with figure of a Turk, South German, early 17th century.
Provenance
Soulages Collection which was displayed at Marlborough House, London in 1856. Jules Soulages was a collector of French and Italian Renaissance art; after his death his collection was acquired by the Victoria and Albert Museum. Born in Toulouse in 1803, Jules Soulages practised as a lawyer in Paris and was founding member of the Société Archeologique du Midi de la France. He created an extensive collection of French and Italian Renaissance decorative art from 1825. Soulages died on 13 October 1857, aged 54. The dealer John Webb was despatched to examine and report on the collection, which was purchased between 1859 and 1865 in installments for £11,000 with the assistance of 73 subscribers.
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
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.
Read next:Anchor (recoil) escapement
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