BY JOHANNES VAN CEULEN, THE HAGUE, CIRCA 1695

Johannes van Ceulen (1656-1715) was one of the most capable and prolific clockmakers in the late 17th/early 18th century in the Hague, as discussed in R. Plomp, Spring-driven Dutch Pendulum Clocks 1657-1710, Schiedam, 1979, pp. 88-107. He is first mentioned in the Hague in 1676 and became a citizen in 1677, when he bought a house opposite that of Christian Huygens, for whom he made a planetarium (now in the Museum Boerhave, Leiden) and two clocks which attempted to determine longitude at sea. Two clocks of related design, though with brass rather than silver fittings, were sold Sotheby's, Amsterdam, 25 May 2004, lot 172 (16,589 Euros) and Christie's, Amsterdam, 19 December 2007, lot 483 (33,600 Euros).