Picture clock

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Picture clock " Trier Cathedral ", painted by Ludwig Neureuter in Trier
Picture clock Porta Nigra as "St. Simeonskirche ”, painted by Ludwig Neureuter in Trier

As picture clocks is called painting or other pictorial representations with discreetly integrated clock.

description

Picture clocks often show urban vedute , landscape and village scenes with clock faces integrated in towers, which belong to an actual, functioning clock. The depictions sometimes show pure fantasy landscapes, but mostly actually existing locations. Since the painters often wanted to reproduce the buildings as accurately as possible, picture clocks are also a valuable source for the earlier appearance of buildings that have been changed or destroyed today. Picture clocks in which the picture shows an interior and the clock is part of the room furnishings are rarer; sometimes it is also a portrait of a well-known personality who is in the depicted room. Even with well-painted picture clocks, the dial is usually disproportionately large, since the time had to be readable. In order to be able to integrate the function as a clock, buildings sometimes had to be provided with a dial in the picture, which in reality had never had a clock - or an entire building was added to act as a support for the clock; the latter is often found in pictures in which a largely undeveloped landscape was shown.

Picture clocks originated mainly in Austria , Switzerland, France and Belgium in the first half of the 19th century . Biedermeier picture clocks from Austria in particular fetch high prices at auctions today .

French picture clocks are often equipped with an additional striking mechanism, the so-called angelus chime. At the end of the 19th century, there were also large numbers of industrially manufactured picture clocks that did not use a hand-painted picture but an oil print. At the beginning of the 20th century, the fashion of picture clocks seems to have finally passed.

More recently, there are simpler picture clocks with plug-in mechanisms, picture clocks that are “antique”, but also old pictures that are combined with old clock mechanisms that were not originally associated and thus subsequently turned into a picture clock. Interested parties should be cautious here, as these recently manufactured picture clocks have a significantly lower value than unadulterated originals. In the case of original picture clocks, it is important to ensure that the striking mechanisms and music mechanisms are still complete, as defective music boxes were often simply removed. Conversely, additional musical mechanisms are sometimes installed at a later date in order to increase the sales value in the art trade or old clockworks are used in picture clocks whose original work had been lost. The value of a picture clock depends not only on the originality, but also on the quality of the painting, the representation (well-known buildings or cityscapes usually have a higher value than pure fantasy landscapes) and, last but not least, on the name of the painter and watchmaker.

The term picture clock is also incorrectly used for wall clocks with a painted dial, such as those used in B. were made in the Black Forest. The picture clocks also do not include picture frames in which a clock is integrated - here the clock is outside the field of view and has no relation to the picture.

The paintings of the picture clocks were often painted on canvas, but also on wood or sheet metal. In German and Austrian picture clocks, the dial is usually part of the painting, in French clocks the dial is often enameled and attached to the movement; the painting then has a round cutout in which the dial becomes visible. With this construction, the painting can usually be opened forwards, making the clockwork easily accessible. However, this different construction is not always a sure sign of the origin of a picture clock, since clockworks were also sold individually, exported and installed elsewhere, especially since the beginning of their factory production; sometimes older pocket watch movements were also used for picture clocks. The winding of the spring-driven clockworks was often done from the front through corresponding holes in the picture, but there are also clocks that are wound from the side or with the help of cords, which made it possible to avoid holes in the image.

The movements were mostly equipped with a Viennese four-quarter strike on the gong and repeater. Some also contained musical mechanisms that are either connected to the clockwork and triggered at a certain time or can be switched on separately. In some picture clocks on which a particular church is depicted, the striking mechanism or musical mechanism imitates the actual chime.

An absolute rarity are picture clocks in which parts of the representation move in connection with the striking or musical mechanism. In Hamburg there is a picture clock with the city panorama on the Alster, in which not only the people of a tea party depicted in the foreground, but also boats, carriages driving over a bridge, pedestrians and a windmill set in motion, driven by a complicated work .

Austrian picture clocks were painted on metal (iron or copper sheet), otherwise canvas was often used. The picture clocks by the former glass painter Carl Ludwig Hofmeister (also spelled “Hoffmeister”) are in great demand today . Ludwig Neureuter (1796–1871) emerged as a painter of picture clocks in Trier .

literature

  • Brigitte Kolhammer -uschek, Kristian P. Scheed: clock pictures picture clocks. without location information 1970.

Picture gallery

Web links

Commons : Picture Clocks  - collection of pictures, videos, and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ernst von Bassermann-Jordan : Watches 5th edition, revised by Hans von Bertele, Braunschweig 1969, p. 236 ff: “The idea, landscape. or to equip architectural images with moving clocks was often done in Vienna and Switzerland at the beginning of the 19th century "
  2. ↑ Michael Brückner quotes Peter Hüttler, an expert at the Vienna auction house Dorotheum , in Die Welt of June 20, 2011 : “The demand for picture clocks is great and international. Depending on the motif, the prices range up to 70,000 euros. "
  3. ↑ So z. B. in a privately owned clock with a view of Trier Cathedral .
  4. ↑ Video about the clock in the Hamburg Museum: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Su6kSxNcY94