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Lot Essay
The present clock is a remarkable feat of horology and is one of the most complicated and original clocks of its type to be offered on the open market. Its quality of construction and sheer opulence indicate that this clock was indeed David Buschmann's Masterpiece.
The date of 1625 stamped on the sphere surmounting the clock can either be read as correct indicating that Buschmann was using old stock, or that it was incorrectly stamped and it was really meant to read 1652. The Augsburg clockmakers' guild stipulated that the following functions had to be fullfilled for the construction of a Masterpiece;
A clock of the dimensions as hitherto, about a span high, which strikes the hours and the quarters. It shall also have an alarm and shall likewise show the astrolabe, the length of the days, the calendar and the planets and their signs. When the quarter hand is moved, all hands shall strike the hours both to 12 and 24, as one may select (Klaus Maurice & Otto Mayr, The Clockwork Universe; German Clocks and Automata, New York, 1980, pp. 57-79)
The remarkable state of preservation of this clock is noteworthy. To have retained the original gilding and also the original enamelling in the silver hour and quarter dials is particularly rare but for the clock to have survived being converted to pendulum is extremely unusual. The original foliate pierced and engraved balance clock is still being used on top of the movement, now regualted by a hair spring instead of the original 'hog's bristle' arrangement.
David Buschmann was born on 11 July, 1626 and died 6th April 1701. He was married twice in 1657 and again in 1689 and he became Master on 5th August 1657. He was capable of making not only highly complicated monumental clocks such as the present example but he is also recorded as having made a tiny ring watch, a feat that watchmakers in the mid 18th century regarded with considerable awe. Approximately 25 clocks and watches by Buschmann exist in museums around the world including the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, the Stadt-Museum, Strasbourg, the British Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
The date of 1625 stamped on the sphere surmounting the clock can either be read as correct indicating that Buschmann was using old stock, or that it was incorrectly stamped and it was really meant to read 1652. The Augsburg clockmakers' guild stipulated that the following functions had to be fullfilled for the construction of a Masterpiece;
A clock of the dimensions as hitherto, about a span high, which strikes the hours and the quarters. It shall also have an alarm and shall likewise show the astrolabe, the length of the days, the calendar and the planets and their signs. When the quarter hand is moved, all hands shall strike the hours both to 12 and 24, as one may select (Klaus Maurice & Otto Mayr, The Clockwork Universe; German Clocks and Automata, New York, 1980, pp. 57-79)
The remarkable state of preservation of this clock is noteworthy. To have retained the original gilding and also the original enamelling in the silver hour and quarter dials is particularly rare but for the clock to have survived being converted to pendulum is extremely unusual. The original foliate pierced and engraved balance clock is still being used on top of the movement, now regualted by a hair spring instead of the original 'hog's bristle' arrangement.
David Buschmann was born on 11 July, 1626 and died 6th April 1701. He was married twice in 1657 and again in 1689 and he became Master on 5th August 1657. He was capable of making not only highly complicated monumental clocks such as the present example but he is also recorded as having made a tiny ring watch, a feat that watchmakers in the mid 18th century regarded with considerable awe. Approximately 25 clocks and watches by Buschmann exist in museums around the world including the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, the Stadt-Museum, Strasbourg, the British Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.