Travelling sundial & compass, silver, Paris — view 1 of 2 — View 1 of 2 · Image: © Victoria and Albert Museum, London · original image source

View 1 of 2 · Image: © Victoria and Albert Museum, London · original image source

Instruments · Sundial

Travelling sundial & compass, silver, Paris

DocumentedDocumented from the holding institution's catalogue record.

Maker / attribution: Unrecorded in source
Date: 1680-1699
Historical period: Early Modern Horology (1600 – 1750)
Country of origin: France
Place: Paris
Object type: Sundial
Materials / technique: Silver
Holding institution: Victoria and Albert Museum, London
Accession / object no.: CIRC.415-1923

Record summary

Held and catalogued by Victoria and Albert Museum, London (object number CIRC.415-1923), this is a sundial, made in Paris, France, dated 1680-1699. The Atlas places it in the Early Modern Horology period (1600 – 1750) of its Instruments collection. Materials and techniques recorded by the source: Silver. 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

V&A — Summary

The geographical latitudes of 30 towns, mostly French, are engraved on he back of this sundial. With the inbuilt compass, they helped the traveller to position the sundial, so that he or she could more accurately discover the time of day. This type of dial was invented by the English instrument maker Michael Butterfield, who was working in Paris about 1700. A German travellers' guide of the time recommended the use of sundials over clocks, because the chiming of clocks might attract thieves.

V&A gallery label

Silver Gallery: On the back are engraved the geographical latitudes of 30 towns, mostly French. They helped the traveller calibrate the sundial. This type of sundial was invented by the English instrument maker Michael Butterfield working in Paris around 1700. A contemporary German travellers' guide recommended the use of sundials, as the chiming of other clocks might attract thieves.

Inscriptions & marks

Signed ‘Butterfield Paris’

Historical context

Early Modern Horology (1600 – 1750)

Huygens' pendulum and balance spring transform accuracy; English makers develop the anchor and deadbeat escapements.

Pocket sundials, Butterfield dials and sandglasses remained essential companions to imperfect clocks; navigators used sandglasses and the log line; observatories began to combine telescopes with pendulum clocks.

Read the period in the timeline More instruments from this period Earlier: Renaissance Horology

Atlas type guide

Sundials and solar time-finders

A sundial tells time from the position of a shadow cast by a gnomon or style. Because the sun's apparent motion depends on latitude, every fixed dial is laid out for a particular latitude, and portable dials either carry a latitude scale or are made for one region. Sundials show local apparent solar time, which drifts against mean (clock) time by up to about sixteen minutes over the year — the equation of time.

Portable dials were the pocket instruments of the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries. Nuremberg and Augsburg workshops produced folding ivory diptych dials with inset compasses; English and French makers sold brass horizontal dials, ring dials and the Butterfield type; Japanese and Chinese makers had their own traditions of compass dials. After mechanical watches became reliable, dials remained in use for setting them, and nineteenth-century heliochronometers were built to correct directly for the equation of time.

What to look for

The latitude engraved on the dial plate or a latitude arc on the gnomon — it shows where the dial was meant to be used.
The type of hour lines: equal (equinoctial) hours, Italian or Babylonian hours counted from sunset or sunrise, or unequal temporal hours on early and Islamic instruments.
An inset magnetic compass and whether a magnetic-declination mark is drawn on its card — a useful dating clue because declination changes over time.
Maker's signatures and town marks: Nuremberg compass-makers (Kompassmacher) often struck a personal mark and the town's punch.
Additional scales such as lunar volvelles, wind roses, perpetual calendars or lists of cities with their latitudes.

Dating clues

Ivory diptych dials are characteristic of Nuremberg between about 1500 and 1700.
Butterfield-type dials with a bird-shaped adjustable gnomon point to Paris workshops from the late seventeenth century onward.
Equation-of-time tables engraved on the plate became common after the mid-seventeenth century, once pendulum clocks made the difference between solar and mean time obvious.

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.

Mechanisms mentioned

No escapement or complication is named in the source record. See the encyclopedia for how such pieces work.

Record completeness

Maker or attributionNot in source
DateRecorded
Place or countryRecorded
MaterialsRecorded
DimensionsNot in source
Narrative descriptionRecorded
Inscriptions / marksRecorded
ProvenanceNot in source
Several photographsRecorded

Editorial status: Documented — facts as published by the source; not independently verified by Atlas editors.

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Sources & image rights

Record source: Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

Image rights: © Victoria and Albert Museum (non-commercial terms) — permission review.

Images are hosted by the Atlas for study and credited to their owner. Rights holders may request correction, credit changes or removal via the editorial office.

Cite this record

"Travelling sundial & compass, silver, Paris." Victoria and Albert Museum, London, CIRC.415-1923. Catalogue record in The Horology Atlas, WatchMuseum.org, https://atlas.watchmuseum.org/museum/travelling-sundial-compass-silver-paris-b9065e.