Important Collectors' Wristwatches, P...

Geneva, Hotel Noga Hilton, Oct 16, 2005

LOT 199

Gio(vanni) Treffler, Augusta. Made for the Italian market, circa 1660. Very fine, rare and early, walnut day and night table clock with single hand.

CHF 25,000 - 35,000

EUR 16,000 - 23,000 / USD 20,000 - 28,000

Sold: CHF 23,000

C. Rectangular, walnut, the interior lined with sheet metal, ring for supporting the light source, concave cresting, the ?chimney? in the top, hinged front door with glazed shaped pendulum aperture, the side with inverted corbels, raised on bun feet, the back with small hinged door to access the light. D. Brass chapter ring with radial Roman numerals and half-hour markers, rectangular iron dial plate painted with cherubs flying amongst the night sky above a landscape, cut-out sector for the night hours revealing a disc pierced with the Arabic hour numeral, the quarters pierced with Roman numerals above. Pierced and engraved brass hand. M. 95 mm., circular, gilt brass with ring-turned pillars, fusee with chain, lipped barrel, verge escapement with cow-tail pendulum and screwed brass ball regulation bob, brass dust cover. Movement signed. Dim. 49 x 39.5 x 16 cm. overall.


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Grading System
Grade:
Case: 3-21

Good

Period
Movement: 3*

Good

Overhaul recommended, at buyer's expense
Dial: 3-21-05

Good

Period

HANDS Luminous material reapplied

Notes

Provenance: Masterpieces from The Time Museum, Sotheby's, October 13, 2004, Lot 524. Time Museum Inventory No. 305. Giovanni Filippo Treffler Also known as Johann Philipe Trefler, he was born in Augsburg in June 1625. He trained as a clockmaker and moved to Florence in 1656. This night clock is a very early example of an Italian made clock with a pendulum and it may well be that Treffler was inspired by the experiments of Galileo Galilei (1564 - 1642), the famous Italian astronomer and mathematician. Galileo was the first person to appreciate that a pendulum will take the same amount of time to pass a fixed point, however great or small the arc of oscillation. He reached this important conclusion while watching and measuring the time of oscillation of an oil lamp gently swinging to and fro in Pisa Cathedral. The actual application of a pendulum to a clock mechanism was first made by the Dutch scientist Christiaan Huygens (1629 - 95) in about 1656 and from this time the accuracy of mechanical clocks was much improved. Galileo had died by the time Treffler arrived in Italy, but his influence was still widely felt. Treffler returned to Augsburg in 1664 and died there in December 1698.