Precious Time: The Jacob Marquart Table Clock, 1567

Table Clock
Jacob Marquart
1567
Germany
The Victoria & Albert Museum

This unusual clock was made in 1567 by Jacob Marquart, one of a famous family of clockmakers in Augsburg, in southern Germany. The intricately decorated casing and finely engraved dials demonstrate that this clock was not simply a functional household item, but was commissioned or purchased to be a showpiece and family treasure.

Shallow, horizontal clocks resting on small feet, like this one, were made in Europe beginning around the Fifteenth Century and until the Eighteenth Century.  They were made in a host of different shapes including square, hexagonal, octagonal and drum-shaped.

Clocks such as these were so important to the Augsburg clockmakers’ art that the creation of a table clock was one of the tests given to an apprentice who was given eight months to make as elaborate a clock as possible.  Many South German examples incorporated astronomical, astrological and calendar information in their dials.

This example features an alarm.  It consists of a square brass case on four bun feet, whose underside is set with sundials and calendars. The brass clock dial boasts an applied copper chapter ring. The flat iron sides are lightly engraved.