"Precision and Splendor: Clocks and Watches at The Frick Collection" Exhibition
The Frick Collection
This event has ended.
Today the question "What time is it?" is quickly answered by looking at any number of devices around us, from watches to phones to computers. For millennia, however, determining the correct time was not so simple. In fact, it was not until the late thirteenth century that the first mechanical clocks were made, slowly replacing sundials and water clocks. It would take several hundred years before mechanical timekeepers became reliable and accurate. This exhibition explores the discoveries and innovations made in the field of horology from the early sixteenth to the nineteenth century. The exhibition, to be shown in the new Portico Gallery, features eleven clocks and fourteen watches from the Winthrop Kellogg Edey bequest, along with five clocks lent by the collector Horace Wood Brock that have never before been seen in New York City. Together, these objects chronicle the evolution over the centuries of more accurate and complex timekeepers and illustrate the aesthetic developments that reflected Europe's latest styles.
[Image: Clock with Study and Philosophy, movement by Renacle-Nicolas Sotiau (master in 1782), figures after Simon-Louis Boizot, 1785−90, Patinated and gilt bronze, marble, enameled metal, and glass; Horace Wood Brock Collection ]
Media
Schedule
from January 23, 2013 to February 02, 2014
Artist(s)
Pierre de Fobis, George Smith, Henry Arlaud, Pierre Huaud, Julien Le Roy, Thomas Mudge, and Abraham-Louis, Antoine-Louis Breguet et al.