Skip to main content

Gothic Iron Clock

Image attached to M.25-1938

An image of Metalwork. Gothic Iron Clock. Unknown clockmaker. Probably German, but the clock bears some resemblance to the Swiss Liechti clocks of the sixteenth century. Iron clock with weight driven movement of fifteen hour duration and striking hours and quarters. Dial. Ogee arched-top dial plate with pierced tracery centre and chapter ring between two bands of simple Greek fret. The white painted chapter ring (now discoloured) with Roman numerals I-XII, and simple half hour markings in black. Pierced and shaped gilt single iron hand which may be of later date. In the arch, a circular aperture with a rotating disc behind to show the phases of the moon. At the base of the arch are two small raised shields with indistinct quarterings. Movement. Weight driven movement, of fifteen hour duration, and striking hours and quarters. The whole clock made of iron. The going train controlled by a verge escapement and foliot balance with moveable square weights for adjusting the timekeeping. The quarter striking train in the middle of the frame, with a vertical hammer arbor and strikes on the larger bell. Release of the striking is controlled by a nag's head lifting piece, so no warning action occurs. Spare holes in the bottom bars of the frame have been made later to increase the duration between winding by suspending the weights on pulleys and looping up the ends of the cords. The frame has typical Gothic decoration in the iron work and, as is normal with these clocks, there is no provision for enclosing the movement. There has been qjite a lot of repainting of the clock. Iron, height, whole, 53.3 cm, width, whole, 16.8 cm, depth, whole, 20.4 cm, circa 1500-1550.

Terms of use

These images are provided for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons License (BY-NC-ND). To license a high resolution version, please contact our image library who will discuss fees, terms and waivers.

Download this image

Creative commons explained - what it means, how you can use our's and other people's content.

About this image

Metalwork. Gothic Iron Clock. Unknown clockmaker. Probably German, but the clock bears some resemblance to the Swiss Liechti clocks of the sixteenth century. Iron clock with weight driven movement of fifteen hour duration and striking hours and quarters. Dial. Ogee arched-top dial plate with pierced tracery centre and chapter ring between two bands of simple Greek fret. The white painted chapter ring (now discoloured) with Roman numerals I-XII, and simple half hour markings in black. Pierced and shaped gilt single iron hand which may be of later date. In the arch, a circular aperture with a rotating disc behind to show the phases of the moon. At the base of the arch are two small raised shields with indistinct quarterings. Movement. Weight driven movement, of fifteen hour duration, and striking hours and quarters. The whole clock made of iron. The going train controlled by a verge escapement and foliot balance with moveable square weights for adjusting the timekeeping. The quarter striking train in the middle of the frame, with a vertical hammer arbor and strikes on the larger bell. Release of the striking is controlled by a nag's head lifting piece, so no warning action occurs. Spare holes in the bottom bars of the frame have been made later to increase the duration between winding by suspending the weights on pulleys and looping up the ends of the cords. The frame has typical Gothic decoration in the iron work and, as is normal with these clocks, there is no provision for enclosing the movement. There has been qjite a lot of repainting of the clock. Iron, height, whole, 53.3 cm, width, whole, 16.8 cm, depth, whole, 20.4 cm, circa 1500-1550.

Image data

  • Accession Number: M.25-1938
  • Photograph copyright © The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.
  • Aperture: f/27.0
  • Focal length: 120
  • Camera: Hasselblad H3DII-31
  • Photographer name: Andrew Norman
  • Image height: 1025 pixels
  • Image width: 769 pixels
  • Processed with: Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 5.0 (Windows)
  • Filesize: 400.37kB
  • Exposure time: 1/180
  • ISO Speed: 100
  • Fnumber: 27/1

Key words

16th Century chapter ring clock dial dial plate Fitz_AA German gilded gilding gilt Gothic iron lunar metalwork moon moon phases movement numbers numerals ogee pierced timepiece tracery watch window

Colours in this image

rgb(74,67,63), rgb(120,103,91), rgb(239,239,239), rgb(135,120,104), rgb(151,146,144), rgb(192,191,191), rgb(182,167,161), rgb(190,181,166), rgb(108,116,108), rgb(76,108,124), rgb(212,204,203)

Citation for print

This page can be cited in the Harvard Bibliographic style using the text below:

The Fitzwilliam Museum (2024) "Gothic Iron Clock" Web page available at: https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/id/image/media-214408 Accessed: 2024-04-16 10:06:06

Citation for Wikipedia

To cite this page on Wikipedia you can use this code snippet:

{{cite web|url=https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/id/image/media-214408 |title=Gothic Iron Clock |author=The Fitzwilliam Museum|accessdate=2024-04-16 10:06:06|publisher=The University of Cambridge}}

API call for this record

To call these data via our API (remember this needs to be authenticated) you can use this code snippet:

https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/api/v1/images/media-214408

Bootstrap HTML code for reuse

To use this as a simple code embed, copy this string:

<div class="text-center">
    <figure class="figure">
        <img src="https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/imagestore/aa/aa40/M_25_1938_1_201512_adn21_dc2.jpg"
        alt="Gothic Iron Clock"
        class="img-fluid" />
        <figcaption class="figure-caption text-info">Gothic Iron Clock</figcaption>
    </figure>
</div>
    

Sign up for updates

Updates about future exhibitions and displays, family activities, virtual events & news. You'll be the first to know...