Clocks · Clock
Third Imperial
- Maker / attribution
- August Wilhelm Holmström (creator); House of Fabergé (manufacturer)
- Date
- 1887
- Historical period
- Industrial Revolution (1850 – 1900)
- Country of origin
- Russia
- Object type
- Clock
- Materials / technique
- gold, diamond, gemstone, sapphire, vitreous enamel
- Dimensions
- height: 82 millimetre
- Holding institution
- Private collection (data via Wikidata)
- Credit line
- Object data: Wikidata (CC0); the egg is in a private collection
- Catalogue title (original)
- Third Imperial (English)
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Record summary
Held and catalogued by Private collection (data via Wikidata), this is a clock by August Wilhelm Holmström, made in Russia, dated 1887. The Atlas places it in the Industrial Revolution period (1850 – 1900) of its Clocks collection. Materials and techniques recorded by the source: gold, diamond, gemstone, sapphire, vitreous enamel. Recorded dimensions: height: 82 millimetre. The record is illustrated with 2 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
Wikipedia — Third Imperial (Fabergé egg) (CC BY-SA 4.0)
The Third Imperial egg is an Easter Fabergé egg created in the workshop of Peter Carl Fabergé for the Russian tsar Alexander III and presented to his wife, Maria Feodorovna, on Orthodox Easter of 1887. The egg was created in Louis XVI style and it consists of a solid 18K gold reeded case resting on a gold "annulus" (ring) with waveform decorations held up by three sets of corbel-like legs which end in lion's paws. Joining these legs are festoons of roses and leaves made in a variety of coloured gold alloys and joined in the middle of each side by matching oval cabochon sapphires. Above each sapphire is a gold bow decorated with a series of tiny diamonds, and the front of the egg has a single much-larger diamond in an old-mine diamond clasp which when pressed releases the egg's lid to reveal its surprise.
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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