Small monstrance clock with rock crystal case South German or Austrian, early 17th Century.

Case: The base standing on four turned iron feet and molded and chased contains the striking movement, which is in a watch-type case, with the bell strapped below it. Eight sloping rock crystal panels allow a partial view of this movement. The turned-brass stem is encased in rock crystal of baluster shape and the going train of the clock is housed in an octagonal escalloped vertical drum-shaped case, of which the rear is a hinged door of rock-crystal with a brass bezel and the front including the dial, of gilt brass with applied silver rings. The sides of the drum are of rock crystal; they are flanked by pierced scrolls terminating in female busts surmounted by a pierced scroll surrounding a small globe.

Dial: Dial with an outermost narrow silver ring Diameter 44cm. Engraved with the names of the months and the number of their days (but without indicating hand): within this a narrow brass hour ring with hours I to XII in Roman numerals and arrowheads at the half-hours. Within again, a silver disc numbered at its edge1 to 30 for the day of the month, and with an engraved landscape at its centre; in a semi-circular slot a ring of numbers can be seen corresponding to the moon’s age and through a circular aperture its phase can be seen visually. A pierced brass hand shows the hour on the hour-ring, and a similar shorter hand shows the date; this hand rotates, with the moon-ring, once in 30 days, so that the moon’s age is in error by ½ day per month.

Movement: Going train of brass throughout, except for motion-work wheels, which are of iron. Fusee, verge escapement, brass balance-wheel with balance-spring and regulator of Tompion type. Pierced single-foot cock, foot and other decorations. The cock incorporates the letter A. The whole going movement is consistent with a date of about 1680 but thin brass sheet attached to the inside of the silver dial centre is punched “ANNO 1609 WIENN'. The striking train movement, mounted within plates, 4.4 cm diameter in the bases is of a conventional count-wheel type, with the wheel in the form of a sliding ring cut and marked for a sequence 1 to 12. Going barrel. The unlocking of the striking train is a vertical arbor within the stem.

Purchased from the Ralph Bernal Collection

Clocks were luxury items designed to impress as well as educate. By the 1550s it was fashionable for wealthy gentlemen to have a sound understanding of all branches of learning, from art and literature to mathematics and the natural sciences. Clocks such as this were housed alongside automatons and scientific instruments such as astrolabes and sundials in Scientifica, collections celebrating human ability to control nature.

Ralph Bernal's collection of decorative art objects was formed in the 1830s and 1840s and the V&A bought extensively from the sale of his collection in 1855 which lasted for thirty-two days and comprised 4,294 lots. Bernal trained as a lawyer and stood as Member of Parliament from 1818 to 1852. He spent twenty thousand pounds on his collection which was rich in ceramics, arms and armour and clocks.

Provenance

Ralph Bernal (1783-1854) was a renowned collector and objects from his collection are now in museums across the world, including the V&A. He was born into a Sephardic Jewish family of Spanish descent, but was baptised into the Christian religion at the age of 22. Bernal studied at Christ's College, Cambridge, and subsequently became a prominent Whig politician. He built a reputation for himself as a man of taste and culture through the collection he amassed and later in life he became the president of the British Archaeological Society. Yet the main source of income which enabled him to do this was the profits from enslaved labour.

In 1811, Bernal inherited three sugar plantations in Jamaica, where over 500 people were eventually enslaved. Almost immediately, he began collecting works of art and antiquities. After the emancipation of those enslaved in the British Caribbean in the 1830s, made possible in part by acts of their own resistance, Bernal was awarded compensation of more than £11,450 (equivalent to over £1.5 million today). This was for the loss of 564 people enslaved on Bernal's estates who were classed by the British government as his 'property'. They included people like Antora, and her son Edward, who in August 1834 was around five years old (The National Archives, T 71/49). Receiving the money appears to have led to an escalation of Bernal's collecting.

When Bernal died in 1855, he was celebrated for 'the perfection of his taste, as well as the extent of his knowledge' (Christie and Manson, 1855). His collection was dispersed in a major auction during which the Museum of Ornamental Art at Marlborough House, which later became the South Kensington Museum (now the V&A), was the biggest single buyer.

This table clock is inspired by contemporary watches in both scale and design. The movement is contained in a case which resembles a flower.

Small monstrance clock with a movement enclosed in an octagonal drum-shaped case of rock-crystal with a scalloped rim imitating a flower, mounted in engraved gilt-metal, with gilt-brass dial with applied silver rings with indexes for months, hours, days and minutes. This is supported on a rock-crystal baluster stem, flanked by gilt arabesque brackets, with octagonal foot. The dial is punched 'ANNO 1609 WIENN' indicating that it was sold in Vienna in 1609. Bought from the sale of the collection of Ralph Bernal MP in 1855.

2376-1855