Accession No

6046

Brief Description

'Horloge Stellaire', nocturnal, by Tremeschini, French, 3/4 19th Century

Origin

France; Paris

Maker

Tremschini

Class

dials

Earliest Date

1875

Latest Date

1875

Inscription Date

&/1852

Material

metal (brass); paper

Dimensions

length 139mm; maximum width 110mm

Special Collection

Provenance

Purchased from the Tesseract catalogue, Box 151, Hastings-on-Hudson, New York, 10706, USA on or before 26/4/2005. Previously sold at Sotheby’s Masterpieces from the Time Museum, part 4 volume II, October 13th & 14th 2004, Lot 807. Previously owned by the Time Museum, Object No. 4051.

Inscription

'TREMESCHINI 1ER PRIX BRTE S.G.D.C. PARIS 1844 HORLOGE STELLAIRE brev, s.g.d.c en vente chez tous les principaux Opticiens & Papetiers 1852' (on paper chapter ring)

Description Notes

“Horloge Stellaire” brass nocturnal by Tremeschini; French; 3/4 19th C

Brass disc base with extruding arm, identation to circumference opposite arm; rotatable chapter ring with a printed paper scale labeled 1-12, 1-12 numbered by 1 divided to 15 minutes; bird-shaped plummet with release button on reverse of disc, rotates about pin that is attached to the shaft by a heart-shaped bridge; shaft runs perpendicularly to disk, peep sight at end.

Condition good; complete

References

Events

Description
Once the chapter ring has been correctly adjusted for the date, this simple nocturnal can tell the time at night. To do this the observer would find Polaris (the North star) through the peep hole, then align the arm of the disk with the two brightest stars of Ursa Major (sometimes called the Great Bear of the Big Dipper). Then pressing the release button, the bird-shaped plummet will fall and point to the correct time.
12/07/2005
Created by: James Hyslop on 12/07/2005

FM:46514