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Wall clock, Bergshammar socken, 1700 — view 1 of 1
View 1 of 1 · Image: Sörmland Museum · original image source

Clocks · Wall clock

Wall clock, Bergshammar socken, 1700

DocumentedDocumented from the holding institution's catalogue record.
Maker / attribution
Unrecorded in source
Date
1700
Historical period
Early Modern Horology (1600 – 1750)
Country of origin
Unrecorded in source
Place
Bergshammar socken
Object type
Wall clock
Holding institution
Sörmland Museum
Accession / object no.
SLM_item_288129
Catalogue title (original)
Väggur av trä med målade arabiska siffror, timvisare av trä, sannolikt 1700-tal (Swedish)

View the source record ↗

Record summary

Held and catalogued by Sörmland Museum (object number SLM_item_288129), this is a wall clock, made in Bergshammar socken, dated 1700. The Atlas places it in the Early Modern Horology period (1600 – 1750) of its Clocks collection. The record is illustrated with 1 photograph.

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 Sörmland Museum (Swedish)

Väggur. Tavla av trä. Rektangulär grundform med de två övre hörnen avskurna. En visare i trä. Arabiska siffror i svart. Verkets kugghjul är alla av trä utom ett som har järntaggar. I lodsnöret sitter en mindre järnring och en liten trissa i trä. Sannolikt 1700-tal. Enligt notering från Bergshammar. Inköpt 1918 från målarmästaren och fabrikören Anders Sandberg (1849-1933) för 8 kronor. "Den gamle A.A.O. var en äkta samlare, ingen auktion kunde försiggå i bygden utan att han var där. Han samlade stort och smått, värdefullt och rena skräpet..." ur artikel 11 maj 1966 i Södermanlands nyheter.

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 An editor-reviewed English translation has not yet been published; we do not publish machine translations as authoritative text.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

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

Regulators, wall and Vienna clocks

A regulator is a precision pendulum clock used as a time standard in observatories, workshops and railway offices. Typical features are a deadbeat or Graham escapement, a temperature-compensated pendulum (mercury jar, gridiron or later invar), maintaining power and a regulator dial that separates hours, minutes and seconds. George Graham's deadbeat escapement (c. 1715) and his mercury pendulum, together with Harrison's gridiron, set the pattern for two centuries.

Wall clocks span a much wider range: the elegant Viennese Laterndluhr and Dachluhr of the Biedermeier period, the Dutch stoelklok and staartklok, English 'dial' clocks used in schools, offices and railway stations, and mass-produced spring and weight wall clocks from Germany (Gustav Becker, Junghans, Kienzle) and America.

What to look for

  • Deadbeat escapement and compensated pendulum (gridiron rods, mercury jar or wood rod).
  • A regulator dial with a large central minute hand and separate hour and seconds dials.
  • Vienna regulators: glazed cases, slender pendulum, small weights, enamel two-piece dials.
  • German factory trademarks stamped on the backplate (e.g. Gustav Becker anchor and crown, Junghans star).

Dating clues

  • Graham-type deadbeat regulators: from c. 1720.
  • Viennese Laterndluhr: c. 1800–1850.
  • German factory 'Vienna-style' regulators: c. 1870–1930; Gustav Becker serial numbers allow close dating.

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) escapementGrasshopper escapement

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