AN HISTORICALLY IMPORTANT KESSELS: E.J. DENT FULL-PLATE EIGHT-DAY MARINE CHRONOMETER

KESSELS, NO. 1287, 1850S

Details

AN HISTORICALLY IMPORTANT KESSELS: E.J. DENT FULL-PLATE EIGHT-DAY MARINE CHRONOMETER
Kessels, No. 1287, 1850s
The silvered dial signed and numbered Kessels, Altona 1287 and with the further annotation AFTER MR KESSELS DEATH, COMPLETED FOR THE WIDOW BY E.J. DENT, LONDON, Roman hour numerals, outer minute chapter with Arabic five minute intermarkers, blued steel Breguet hour and minute hands, subsidiary seconds dial (at XII) and sector up-and-down dial (at VI) both with blued steel hands, full-plate movement with raised barrel bridge, the top-plate inscribed Kessels, Altona 1287, clockwise winding fusee, Earnshaw escapement with escape wheel and jewelled spring foot detent mounted above the top-plate, cut bimetallic Pennington balance, blued steel helical balance spring, brass bowl, the bezel with flat glass, three-tier brass bound rosewood box with external brass drop handle 93 mm. dial diam., 180 mm. sq. box
93 mm. dial diam., 180 mm. sq. box

Literature

Vandrey Mercer, The Life and Letters of Edward John Dent, Antiquarian Horological Society, 1977.

Lot Essay

Heinrich Johann Kessels died at Yatlon outside Bristol, England on 15 July 1849; this chronometer can therefore be dated to the 1850s.
Kessels was born at Maastricht, Holland in 1781. He went to Paris where he worked for Breguet, later going to London where he worked for Muston. In 1821 he went to Copenhagen and was patronised by King Frederick VI who induced him to settle in Altona, then in Danish territory; he later became the chronometer maker to the Royal Danish Navy.
In correspondence between them it appears that Kessels and Dent had a strong bond of friendship and it may be assumed it is for this reason that Dent undertook to complete No. 1287 for Kessel's widow.

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