- Museum number
- 1874,0718.5
- Description
-
Clock-watch with alarm
Movement with circular gilt-brass plates and decorative turned pillars rivetted to the back plate; open springs with guard posts. All train wheels of steel; going train with verge escapement.
Turning the hand on a dial mounted on the back-plate regulates the watch by altering the position at which the balance banks against two hog's bristles on the regulator arm. Blued steel stackfreed spring and roller; engraved brass cam.
Striking train, for hours only, with nag's head release and blued steel annular count-wheel recessed into the back plate.
Octagonal gilt-brass dial-plate with touch pieces, the applied silver dial decorated with coloured enamels. Black enamel chapters for I - XII and 13 - 24.
Central gilt-brass alarm setting disc.
Gilt-brass case with symmetrical pierced decoration to back and cover; colonnaded band.
Unidentified maker's mark punched on back plate:-
(the shield with a double-headed eagle is possibly the town mark of Lubek).
- Production date
- 1600-1620
- Dimensions
-
Width: 49.70 millimetres (case)
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
-
Text from 'Watches', by David Thompson, London, 2008, p. 28-29.
GH
GILT-BRASS OCTAGONAL CASED CLOCK-WATCH WITH ALARM GERMANY (PERHAPS LÜBECK), c. 1600-20
SIGNED: 'GH', with a double-headed eagle in a shield
It was common practice in sixteenth-century Germany for watchmakers to mark their work with their initials in a shield, sometimes with some sort of reference to their name. Thus Hans Gruber's mark was 'HG' together with crossed spades, and Viet Schaufel's 'VS' with a shovel. Such marks could be accompanied by the mark of the town where the maker lived, for example a pine cone for Augsburg, a wheel for Mainz or a monk's head for Munich. In addition to these shield marks, some makers simply applied their separate initials and occasionally a town mark. This watch is marked 'GH', the initials flanking a rather poorly conceived mark, which is very likely to be a stylized double-headed eagle. The fact that the double-headed eagle was the mark of Lübeck might suggest that the watch was made there, but such an attribution has to be tentative as the symbol also appears in other forms in central Europe at this time. However, two other octagonal cased watches - one in the Museum of London and one in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford - are possibly related. Both are punched with the maker's mark 'AH' and the double-headed eagle. A third example is a watch marked 'IH' with an eagle in a shield. It is possible that these watches all originate from Lübeck but this must remain as speculation until more evidence comes to light.
By the beginning of the second decade of the seventeenth century wearing watches around the neck had become much less popular than suspending them from a ribbon or chain attached to a belt or waistband. This fashion popularized new shapes, particularly the oval and the elongated octagonal form in which the two side elements were lengthened to produce a pendant shape for the watch. In contrast to these two common forms, there were also watches housed in cases of regular octagonal form but, judging from the limited number which are known to exist today, only a few were ever made.
This watch is typically Germanic in concept and has survived remarkably well, with only the original balance being replaced at a later date. To maintain reasonable accuracy, given that it was made before the introduction of the balance spring, the watch is furnished with a stackfreed cam and roller to even out the changing force of the mainspring as the watch runs. The watch strikes the hours on a bell in the back of the case, the number of blows struck at each hour being determined by the blued-steel count wheel recessed into the movement's back plate. For fine regulation of the going rate, there is a hog's-bristle regulator, operated by rotating the hand above a calibrated disc, numbered 1-6.This moves a lever on which are two hog's bristles; these move towards or away from the balance which bounces against them so that they either shorten or lengthen the arc through which the balance swings, and so change the rate of the watch.
To add to the sophistication of the watch, there is an alarm mechanism, set by turning the central disc on the dial until the desired alarm time appears at the tail of the hour hand. The silver chapter ring is typically Germanic with hours numbered I-XII and 13-24 with the 2 in the characteristic 'z' form. Overall, this small, neat watch has a rather elegant design compared with many of its contemporaries and it is perhaps surprising that there were not more 'watches made in this shape.
-
Comment from Hugh Tait, Catalogue of Watches in the British Museum. Vol. I (1987)
Maker Unknown, initials GH; possibly Nuremberg, or Zug (Switzerland), first half of 17th century
Watch with Hour-Striking Mechanism and Alarum
Case:
Back: chamfered border, lightly engraved with eight rectangular panels but otherwise plain; pierced symmetrical pattern of conventional foliage with central small rosette; in the centre, a threaded hole and square boss for the attachment of the bell, which appears to be original.
Band: in design, cut away in the middle and shaped to form an upper and a lower moulding; the central section is pierced to form a colonnade of pillars, curving outwards at top and bottom to the extent of touching, with a short crossbar in the middle of each; turned pendant with ring; small turned pendentive finial.
Lid: chamfered border, lightly engraved with eight rectangular panels but otherwise plain; pierced 'rose window' radiating pattern.
Dial: applied silver plate with translucent orange, green and blue decoration; black enamelled numerals and blue enamelled quarter marks; in the centre, a gilt-metal setting disc for the alarum; gilt-metal hand; strike-release hole to left of IX; small touch-pins.
Movement:
Brass plates and turned-baluster pillars. Gilt-brass stackfreed cam engraved with a rosette matching the dial on the geared regulator, which has a straight rack moving radially to the balance arbor instead of the usual quadrant. Short cock; later brass balance.
The maker's initials, GH flanking a shield emblazoned with a stylised double-headed eagle (?), are engraved near the rim of the pillar-plate by the winding square for the going-train.
Open mainsprings and steel trains throughout; crown-wheel in clip; pierced and engraved locking-arm; shutter-type alarum, with silencing device in the form of a lever screwed to the upper surface of the pillar-plate, one end of which can hold the shutter down. Ornamented brass latch to secure the movement to the dial-plate.
Width (of case): 49.7 mm.
Provenance: Lady Fellows Bequest, 1874.
Notes:
1. The engraved maker's mark bears a resemblance to the punch-marks on a stackfreed watch in the Octavius Morgan Bequest (registration no. 1888,1201.156); in the latter, the initials are IH and the shield contains a displayed eagle. Both marks are unidentifiable but indicate a Germanic origin and may be related to the similar AH punch-mark on the tambour watch in the Museum of London (34.181/7).
2. The design of the back of the case closely resembles the back of a fusee watch signed by Michael Gruber (registration no. 1888,1201.162, in Volume II of this Catalogue). This maker is recorded in G. H. Baillie, 'Watchmakers and Clockmakers of the World', 1929, 2nd edn, London, 1947, as a 'Burger of Nuremberg in 1607'. There exists inconclusive evidence linking the work of Michael Gruber with contemporary watches probably made at Zug, Switzerland.
3. The design of the lid very closely resembles the back of the stackfreed watch with the punch-mark EBC (registration no. 1958,1201.2211), the back of an oval stackfreed watch (registration no. 1874,0718.12), and the lid of a watch-case (registration no. 1958,1201.2232).
4. The design of the colonnaded band most closely resembles that found on an oval case (registration no. 1958,1201.2229) and on the case of the fusee watch signed by Michael Gruber (Volume II of this Catalogue) and already mentioned in note 2 above.
Bibliography: 'Catalogue of the Special Exhibition of Works of Art . . . at the South Kensington Museum', June 1862, rev. edn, London, 1863, no. 7471; G. H. Baillie, 'Watches', London, 1929, pl. VIII, 3, pp. 57, 61, 94, 131.
- Location
- On display (G39/dc14/no7)
- Condition
- Latest: 2 (2016)
- Acquisition date
- 1874
- Department
- Britain, Europe and Prehistory
- Registration number
- 1874,0718.5
