拍品专文
Decimal or Revolutionary time was adopted by decree of the National Convention on November 24, 1793. It stipulated that the Gregorian calendar should be abandoned and replaced by the Republican calendar which divided the day into ten hours each with one hundred minutes and then further sub-divided into one hundred seconds.
Although perhaps a logical 'simplification' of timekeeping the habits of the populous were difficult to change. The new system meant having to design a new dial and to this end a competition was organised to invent one that was clear and easy to read.
Despite the efforts of some of the great horological minds the system was never really adopted and clockmakers had no real reason to fully support it because their Revolutionary clocks were useless outside France which ruined their export trade.
By 1795 it was no longer compulsory to use Decimal time and even before then clocks and watches were being made with both the 'old' and 'new' systems as on the present example.
Finally it was decreed that the Decimal system had proved impossible to implement properly and from January 1, 1805 French timekeeping reverted back to the old system
Although perhaps a logical 'simplification' of timekeeping the habits of the populous were difficult to change. The new system meant having to design a new dial and to this end a competition was organised to invent one that was clear and easy to read.
Despite the efforts of some of the great horological minds the system was never really adopted and clockmakers had no real reason to fully support it because their Revolutionary clocks were useless outside France which ruined their export trade.
By 1795 it was no longer compulsory to use Decimal time and even before then clocks and watches were being made with both the 'old' and 'new' systems as on the present example.
Finally it was decreed that the Decimal system had proved impossible to implement properly and from January 1, 1805 French timekeeping reverted back to the old system