A VICTORIAN EBONISED EIGHT DAY WALL REGULATOR

VICTOR KULLBERG, LONDON, NO. 2258. CIRCA 1875

Details

A VICTORIAN EBONISED EIGHT DAY WALL REGULATOR
VICTOR KULLBERG, LONDON, NO. 2258. CIRCA 1875
CASE: the substantial arched case with tapering terminal, small glazed viewing doors to the sides, with mirrored backboard and ebonised foliate carved apron below the dial DIAL: 12 in. (30 cm.) diameter silvered dial of regulator format, signed 'VICTOR KULLBERG, LONDON. NO. 2258.' beneath flanking garters engraved 'MAKER TO THE ADMIRALTY' and 'PRIZE MEDAL AWARDED 1860, 1862 & 1864', the hour dial engraved to the centre concentrically 'FIVE GOLD MEDALS AWARDED, PARIS. 1867. HAVRE. 1868 TRIESTE. 1871 NAPLES. 1871 ACADEMIE NATIONALE. 1869.', seconds ring above, blued steel hands MOVEMENT: with massive brass plates with chamfered shoulders, five substantial double-screwed pillars, the wheel train with maintaining power, delicate high-count train with six crossings, Vulliamy-type dead beat escapement with jewelled pallets, the escapement pivots and 'scape wheel pivots within jewelled screwed châtons, the remainder of the wheel train with endcaps, indirect wind to the side, fine adjustment to the crutchpiece to the steel-cased mercury jar pendulum (mercury removed) engraved with fine regulation from 1-60, swinging against a silvered beatscale; bronze-patinated weight, crank key, door key
62 in. (158 cm.) high; 15 in. (38 cm.) wide; 9¾ in. (25 cm.) deep

Provenance

Sotheby's London, 5 June 1997, lot 314.

Literature

D. Roberts, English Precision Clocks, Pennsylvania, 2003, p. 269, fig. 23-9.

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Lot Essay

Arguably the finest chronometer maker of the second half of the 19th Century, Victor Kullberg was born on Gotland. He served his apprenticeship with an unknown clockmaker before working for the house of Jurgensen in Copenhagen. Impressed by the workmanship he saw at the Great Exhibition of 1851, he stayed in London. He submitted chronometers to the Greenwich time trials with great success. In 1862 he submitted two pieces, which came first and second out of eighty. In 1882 the Astronomer Royal's report to the Clockmakers' Company said of Kullberg's entry 'this was the finest chronometer they had ever had on trial'.
Kullberg exhibited all over the world. In 1868 he achieved gold medals at Havre and at the National Academy in Paris; and again in Naples in 1871 and Trieste in 1872. In 1874 he was appointed chronometer maker to Sweden and Norway and decorated with the order of Vasa.

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