Maker, Ferdinand Berthoud, Paris, France, c. 1785. Three train pinwheel escapement, 1/2 second gridiron compensated pendulum on knife edge suspension, 30 second Robin remontoire, full perpetual calendar, epicyclical equation of time, moon's age and phase, quarter strike on solar time Chime and strike can be silenced. 25.5"h x 12.25"w x 10.75"d, (65 x 31 x 27.5cm)

Close up views of the clock movement,   Detail of the frame fretting and decoration,  Examination of the decorative gilt ormolu statuary,  Examination the decorative gilt friezes around the rouge marble base,  The equation of time epicyclical complication,  The Robin remontoire,  The perpetual calendar work.

This clock mirrored the timekeeping habits and standards of the owner at the time. Equation clocks were built originally not so much to verify the mean time they kept as to convert this to the solar time people lived by, what the French called "civilian" time as against astronomical. The intention showed on the dial: the first such clocks linked the solar minute hand to the hour hand so the latter showed sun time rather than mean time; when striking, they rang out the solar hours. This is precisely the setup used here.

A conventional equation kidney rotates once per year. In this clock it rotates daily and the readout is translated to the calendar via epicyclical gearing resulting in the correct annual reading. The striking is also synchronized with the solar time, so the quarter chimes and hour strike follow sun time and not clock time as seen on any other clock. The calendar is a full perpetual, allowing for the differing lengths of the months as well as a February of 29 days every four years (leap year). All dials have gilt inner and outer bezels. The base is a rouge marble with gilt repousse friezes.

Aside from the many mechanical complications, the three dimensional presentation of the statuary in front of the movement is exceptional. Rather than being molded into the frame of the clock or staged around the dial work they are fully formed and set naturally in front of the clock works. There is a pleasing quality to it, almost as if the woman and putties had just simply stepped onto the marble base.

Supposedly this clock was made as a pair, with the other being a barometer. During WWII both were located in a house in Austria which was bombed during the war, the barometer did not survive. Later the clock moved to Paris and was auctioned in 1966. It then came to the London dealer, Bobinet in the 1980's. Later it resided in Switzerland, and then came to a private collector in the USA around 2000, some time afterward it entered the current collection.