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Lot Essay
ALBERT ODMARK NOTES
Purchased Ronald Lee, 28 September, 1959.
"This was the first time I had visited Ronald, at that time he was at the Old Court House at Hampton Court. This was a fascinating house that was home to Sir Christopher Wren for a long time (17 years) whilst he oversaw the addition to Hampton Court. Anyway, I spent a considerable amount of time looking around and examining his wonderful clocks which at that time were reputed to be the best English clocks to be found with any dealer. As I was making to leave Ronald asked me if anything took my fancy, 'Well,' I said, 'there is one thing, that four-sided English clock over there,' pointing to his desk where it sat. Ronald said that he found it the week before and just had to have it because it was such a fascinating machine, but he hadn't been able to do any further research yet. 'Well how much is it?' I asked. I could see that Ronald was genuinely not over-keen to sell it without at least being able to do some research - this made it all the more interesting for me. But eventually Ronald said he would part with it for £275 and the clock was mine."
Thomas Hildyard is one of the most enigmatic and elusive English clockmakers of his era. Very little indeed is known about him, he is recorded as born in 1690 in Rotherwas, Hereford. In Baillie's Clocks and Watches, an Historical bibliography, he is recorded as having written an horological discourse on an extraordinarily complex clock with four sides and surmounted by an engraved glass sphere. He describes himself as a Professor of Mathematics at the English College of Liége, Descriptio horologii recens inventi a R. P. Hildyard, Societatis Jesu, olim Mathesos, nunc theologiae professore in Collegio anglicano Leodii. The clock itself is thought to be the the astonishing astronomical four-sided clock in the Spanish Royal Collection, J. Ramon Colon de Carvajal, Catalogo de Reloges del Patrimonio Nacional, Madrid, 1987, pp. 21 & 22.
It is extraordinary to think that a professor Mathematics was capable of making a machine that even the most accomplished clockmakers of the period would have struggled to design, let alone make.
The present clock is remarkable for its innovative design and complexity, the movement is both naive yet clever and the complications are both brilliant yet whimsical. Further research may well shed more light on the life of Thomas Hildyard and this remarkable astronomical clock.
Purchased Ronald Lee, 28 September, 1959.
"This was the first time I had visited Ronald, at that time he was at the Old Court House at Hampton Court. This was a fascinating house that was home to Sir Christopher Wren for a long time (17 years) whilst he oversaw the addition to Hampton Court. Anyway, I spent a considerable amount of time looking around and examining his wonderful clocks which at that time were reputed to be the best English clocks to be found with any dealer. As I was making to leave Ronald asked me if anything took my fancy, 'Well,' I said, 'there is one thing, that four-sided English clock over there,' pointing to his desk where it sat. Ronald said that he found it the week before and just had to have it because it was such a fascinating machine, but he hadn't been able to do any further research yet. 'Well how much is it?' I asked. I could see that Ronald was genuinely not over-keen to sell it without at least being able to do some research - this made it all the more interesting for me. But eventually Ronald said he would part with it for £275 and the clock was mine."
Thomas Hildyard is one of the most enigmatic and elusive English clockmakers of his era. Very little indeed is known about him, he is recorded as born in 1690 in Rotherwas, Hereford. In Baillie's Clocks and Watches, an Historical bibliography, he is recorded as having written an horological discourse on an extraordinarily complex clock with four sides and surmounted by an engraved glass sphere. He describes himself as a Professor of Mathematics at the English College of Liége, Descriptio horologii recens inventi a R. P. Hildyard, Societatis Jesu, olim Mathesos, nunc theologiae professore in Collegio anglicano Leodii. The clock itself is thought to be the the astonishing astronomical four-sided clock in the Spanish Royal Collection, J. Ramon Colon de Carvajal, Catalogo de Reloges del Patrimonio Nacional, Madrid, 1987, pp. 21 & 22.
It is extraordinary to think that a professor Mathematics was capable of making a machine that even the most accomplished clockmakers of the period would have struggled to design, let alone make.
The present clock is remarkable for its innovative design and complexity, the movement is both naive yet clever and the complications are both brilliant yet whimsical. Further research may well shed more light on the life of Thomas Hildyard and this remarkable astronomical clock.