An early 18th-Century German silver and gilt self-erecting equinoctial compass sundial,

Details

An early 18th-Century German silver and gilt self-erecting equinoctial compass sundial,
signed on the underside Johann Willebrand in Augspurg 48, the spring loaded hour ring lined with silver dial graduated 3 - 12 - 9, folding gnomon with heart-shaped weight, the gilt copper octagonal baseplate with incised decoration and spring loaded gilt plummet and frame, the pierced and finely engraved frame released by the lever which also retains the spring loaded hour ring, the silver plate to the baseplate with incised label Gradus Poli and scale graduated 25 - 65, gilt star-form pointer running over the scale and adjusting the elevation of the hour ring by a cam with engraved grotesque face below the plate, the compass with dial divided into four quadrants, inner silver rose disc with arrow running over the scale, the arrow rotatable between 20° East and 20° West of North by a stud in the baseplate, brass-capped, blued-steel needle, the underside with three turned gilt feet -- 2¾in. (7cm.) long, in plush lined wooden case with brass inlays

See Colour Illustration and Details

Literature

BOBINGER, Maximilian Alt-Augsburger Kompaßmacher (Augsburg, 1966)

Lot Essay

Johann Mathias Willebrand (circa 1658-1726) was born in Frankfurt am Main, and moved to Augsburg in 1682 to join his step brother Johann Martin (cf. lots 23-31) from whom, Bobinger notes, he "das Uhrmachen nach aller Perfektion erlernt" (p. 168). After 1703 Willebrand founded his own business, to which he added his stepbrother's after Martin's death in 1721.

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