Clocks · Wall clock
Wooden clock with alarm made in Davos, Switzerland. Wooden movement with balance wheel and separate dials for hours and quarters
- Maker / attribution
- Unrecorded in source
- Date
- 1688-1800
- Historical period
- Early Modern Horology (1600 – 1750)
- Country of origin
- China
- Place
- Graubunden canton, Switzerland, Graubunden canton
- Object type
- Wall clock
- Dimensions
- overall: 310 mm x 155 mm x 200 mm,
- Holding institution
- Science Museum Group, London
- Accession / object no.
- 1990-649
- Credit line
- Wellcome Trust
- Catalogue title (original)
- wooden clock
Record summary
Held and catalogued by Science Museum Group, London (object number 1990-649), this is a wall clock, made in Graubunden canton, Switzerland, Graubunden canton, China, dated 1688-1800. The Atlas places it in the Early Modern Horology period (1600 – 1750) of its Clocks collection. Recorded dimensions: overall: 310 mm x 155 mm x 200 mm. The record is illustrated with 4 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
Science Museum Group description
Wooden clocks such as this were made in Germany and Switzerland and are described as ''Black Forest clocks' due to the large number that were produced in that region. The movements (or mechanisms) of this kind of clock are made primarily from wood.
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.
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