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Lot Essay
COMPARATIVE LITERATURE
Charles K. Aked, Electrifying Time, catalogue of an exhibition held at the Science Museum, 15 December 1976 - 11 April 1977, A.H.S., Ticehurst, 1976
A skeleton clock signed Detouche with an identical contact system is preserved in the Museum of the History of Science, Oxford University. The present clock is of a more novel appearance which is hardly surprising as its inventor was the magician and automaton clockmaker Jean-Eugène Robert-Houdin. In fact such was his reputation that the Great Houdini actually took his name in rememberance of Robert-Houdin. See lot 348, page 131 for the portrait and biography of Robert-Houdin
The weights and electromagnets in the pendulum function in the same way as children on a swing, rhythmically flexing backwards and fowards to make the swing go higher. The movement is driven by a short connecting bar between the weights which counts the fifth seconds through to the dial on the front of the pendulum. He took out the patent in 1856 and teamed up with Constantin Louis Detouche who appears to have signed the very small number of these electrical clocks that exist today.
Charles K. Aked, Electrifying Time, catalogue of an exhibition held at the Science Museum, 15 December 1976 - 11 April 1977, A.H.S., Ticehurst, 1976
A skeleton clock signed Detouche with an identical contact system is preserved in the Museum of the History of Science, Oxford University. The present clock is of a more novel appearance which is hardly surprising as its inventor was the magician and automaton clockmaker Jean-Eugène Robert-Houdin. In fact such was his reputation that the Great Houdini actually took his name in rememberance of Robert-Houdin. See lot 348, page 131 for the portrait and biography of Robert-Houdin
The weights and electromagnets in the pendulum function in the same way as children on a swing, rhythmically flexing backwards and fowards to make the swing go higher. The movement is driven by a short connecting bar between the weights which counts the fifth seconds through to the dial on the front of the pendulum. He took out the patent in 1856 and teamed up with Constantin Louis Detouche who appears to have signed the very small number of these electrical clocks that exist today.