'A watch by Peter Henlein in London?'

Dietrich Matthes ‘A watch by Peter Henlein in London?’ Antiquarian Horology, Volume 36, No. 2 (June 2015), pp. 183–194 The AHS (Antiquarian Horological Society) is a charity and learned society formed in 1953. It exists to encourage the study of all matters relating to the art and history of time measurement, to foster and disseminate original research, and to encourage the preservation of examples of the horological and allied arts. To achieve its aims the AHS holds meetings and publishes books as well as its quarterly peer-reviewed journal Antiquarian Horology. The journal, printed to the highest standards with many colour pages, contains a variety of articles, the society’s programme, news, letters and high-quality advertising (both trade and private). A complete collection of the journals is an invaluable store of horological information, the articles covering diverse subjects including many makers from the famous to the obscure. The entire back catalogue of Antiquarian Horology, every single page published since 1953, is available on-line, fully searchable. It is accessible for AHS members only. For more information visit www.ahsoc.org Volume 36, No. 2 (June 2015) contains, apart from the regular sections such as Book Reviews, Picture Gallery and AHS News, the following articles and notes: A watch by Peter Henlein in London? by Dietrich Matthes NUMBER TWO VOLUME THIRTY-SIX JUNE 2015 Gustave Loup – his life and his horological collection – Part 2, by Ian White The painted & engraved pewter longcase clock dials of Thomas Pyke Sr and Jr - Part 1, by Nial Woodford The long and expensive pursuit of an accurate timekeeper in Blackburn, Lancashire, by Steve and Darlah Thomas The English usage of foliot and balance, by John A. Robey Remembering the irst battery-operated clock, by Beverley F. Ronalds From Burgundy to Castile. Retracing and reconstructing a ifteenth-century golden clock, by Víctor Pérez Álvarez The secrets of John Arnold, watch and chronometer maker, by Martyn Perrin 1 JUNE 2015 A watch by Peter Henlein in London? Dietrich Matthes* In this article we give an overview of watchmaking at the time of Peter Henlein in the irst half of the sixteenth century. We present a stackfreed mechanism that is signiicantly older than previously known pieces and hence brings forward the possible development of lat watches to the irst third of the sixteenth century. We investigate the pricing structure of clocks and watches from Nuremberg between 1521 and 1541 and present archival evidence to link a remarkable timepiece in the British Museum to the famous early watchmaker Peter Henlein of Nuremberg. Peter Henlein (Nuremberg, c.1479–1542) is shrouded in notoriety. This certainly holds true for his life. His brother was beheaded in Augsburg in 1524 for allegedly murdering a beggar girl – even the king intervened on his behalf, but in vain. Peter himself was sought for manslaughter of a fellow apprentice in the locksmith craft. He was granted asylum in the Nuremberg Franciscan monastery for years, attending the trial in safe conduct and ultimately settling the case by paying ‘blood money’ to the victim’s family. But the same holds true for his oeuvre. Despite much excitement in contemporary literature and archives from 1511 onwards about him ‘being one of the irst’ to make tiny watches that ‘go and strike for 40 hours even when you wear them in your purse at your chest’,1 identifying actual timepieces made by him has proven elusive. Indeed, to such an extent, that there was a debate in the early twentieth century about what speciically he had ‘invented’.2 There was a time when he was stylised as a national hero and credited with inventing the mainspring and/or the fusee needed to make weight-driven clocks portable. This however was proven to be wrong by around a century. First of all, there are spring-driven clocks from the ifteenth century in Nuremberg3 (Figs 1 * The author ([email protected]) is technical advisor to the ‘Henlein project’ of the Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg, Germany. 1. J. Cochläus, Cosmographia Pomponii Melae (Appendix: Brevis Germaniae Descriptio), 1511. The description of 40 hour duration should be treated with caution – all preserved pieces from the irst half of the sixteenth century show durations of around 12–15 hours. There has been a discussion whether the Latin word ‘pulsant’ in the original text should be translated as ‘striking’ or simply as ‘ticking’. Hence the function of striking is not certain in the context of this early mention. The irst preserved watch with an alarm is the one in the Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, discussed below, which is dated 1530. 2. There is ample archival evidence of early portable timepieces in Italy from the late ifteenth century, yet no speciic watch or miniature clock is known to survive. Furthermore there are watches in France from at the latest 1551, most likely much earlier. This article does not try to give a complete overview of the development of early watchmaking nor to reject or conirm priority claims, but focuses on the preserved early pieces from Germany as they are most numerous and allow to draw most conclusions. 3. Burgundy, around 1430, bearing the arms of Philip the Good, Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg. The authenticity of this clock has been questioned in the irst half of the twentieth century, but two insights since 1970 allow a clear authentication: (a) An examination (including complete disassembling of both movement and case) by a group of experts including J. Leopold and K. Maurice in 1973 showed that the piece is authentic. K. Maurice, Die Deutsche Räderuhr (München: Beck, 1976), vol 1, p. 86: ‘The Burgundy clock always was a clock, the architectural case was made speciically for this movement, the clock was made around 1430’; (b) The striking mechanism is unique in that it does not have a countwheel. Instead, holes in the worm wheel are used to unlock the striking train. This construction allowed for the reduction of the number of wheels (only three wheels here) and hence the associated backlash. This unique feature has subsequently been found in one other place only: a manuscript on clocks written in Burgundy around 1440. This archival evidence provides additional proof of the authenticity of the clock. (Jean Fusoris, early 15th century, Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, Ms lat. 7295, fol 59v., see Maurice, Die Deutsche Räderuhr, pp. 86-87). 183 ANTIQUARIAN HOROLOGY Fig. 1 (left). Burgundy clock of Philip the Good, Burgundy, around 1430. Photo Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nürnberg. Fig. 2 (right): The movement, going train with fusee and mainspring barrels below. Copyright K. Maurice. Fig. 3. Clock movement fragment with fusee dated 1509. The plate is made of brass. Munich, Bayerisches Nationalmuseum. © Bayerisches Nationalmuseum München. and 2) and London,4 while a third springdriven table clock in Nuremberg may date from the last decades of the ifteenth century.5 There are also contemporary pictures of clocks with mainsprings and fusees.6 The oldest preserved and dated fusee clock bears the inscription G.M.C.S. 1509 (Fig. 3), but as we have seen, the 4. Burgundy, around 1450, (movement altered), British Museum, London (UK) on loan from the Victoria and Albert Museum. 5. Türmchenuhr, c. 1500, Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg, inv. nr. WI 163. 184 JUNE 2015 Fig. 4. Oldest known stackfreed on top of a clock dated to 1533, Kopenhagen, Nationalmuseet. invention of the fusee predates this piece by around a century. Another suggestion was that he invented the stackfreed – an alternative mechanism to equalize the varying force of the mainspring in the course of its unwinding, which has the advantage of being signiicantly less high than a fusee and hence allows for the construction of a lat watch rather than higher table-clocks. The exclusive use of this device in German watches of the sixteenth century makes it a possible, but by no means certain, candidate to be an offspring of his mind. Thusfar the oldest known dated neckwatch with a stackfreed was one inscribed ‘1548’ and ascribed as having been made in Nuremberg.7 Here we would like to point out a piece that is signiicantly older: a stackfreed in the alarum top piece of a table clock dated Fig. 5. Leonardo da Vinci, drawing of a stackfreed type spring force equalisation device, Codex Madrid I, after 1493, Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional. 1533 (Fig. 4),8 which constitutes its irst known use today. There are also pictures of devices with the same effect by Leonardo da Vinci.9 (Fig. 5) A few small cylindrical timepieces from the sixteenth century bear the inscription ‘Petrus Hele me f.(ecit) Norimb.(erg) 1510’, but it has long been known that those were added later. A recent research initiative and exhibition in Nuremberg has tried to shed some light on this old puzzle by subjecting some sixteenth-century timepieces to thorough scientiic research.10 There are three types of watches (small timepieces) that could be candidates for being linked to the time of Peter Henlein, and we will present evidence for a speciic link of one timepiece to Henlein himself in this article. 6. Examples in the Almanus-Manuscript, Rome, around 1477 (Staats- und Stadtbibliothek Augsburg, 2° Cod. 209) and in the often reproduced (recently in Antiquarian Horology Sept 2011, Figs. 6 and 7) miniature in a manuscript of Horologium Sapientiae by Heinrich Seuse, around 1454-1488 (Brussels, Bibliothèque Royale, Ms IV, III, fol. 13 v.) The table-clock with fusee depicted in the latter is about the same size as the head of a igure next to it, but one cannot trust medieval manuscripts to accurately represent relative sizes. 7. Signed ‘CW’ (possibly Caspar Werner of Nuremberg) and dated ‘1548’. Formerly Uhrenmuseum Wuppertal, now Patek Philippe Museum, Geneva, Switzerland. 8. Kopenhagen, Nationalmuseet, Inv. Nr. MMCLXIV. The clock going train itself has a fusee as it is of the ‘high cylinder’ type. 9. While those drawings show devices with the same effect, it is not clear whether they have ever been used to make actual watches. Given that they have the same principle as a stackfreed but are as high as a fusee, this seems unlikely. Codex Madrid I, 1493 – 1502, Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional, fol 16r. 10. Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg, 4 December 2014 to 12 April 2015. The exhibition catalogue is T. Eser, Die älteste Taschenuhr der Welt? Der Henlein Uhrenstreit (Verlag des Germanischen Nationalmuseums, 2014). 185 ANTIQUARIAN HOROLOGY • • Fig. 6. Neck-watch, around 1550; the reverse bears a motto and coat of arms of the Nuremberg patrician family Pfinzing. An almost identical (albeit smaller) watch allows dating of this unusual watch to around 1552 , private collection, Qatar. • Small ‘high’ cylindrical timepieces These were made to stand on a table or be carried in a purse. They are shown on a painting by Holbein dated 1532 and can then be traced with dated pieces from 1549 to 1583. A total of forty-nine specimens are known today,11 with the largest collection of ive pieces being housed in the British Museum.12 Small ‘lat’ cylindrical timepieces (Fig. 6) These were usually worn around the neck on a cord, and sometimes also had separate standing rings or feet to double up as a table clock,13 even including an alarm top piece. The irst depiction is on a painting dated 1545.14 Spherical watches in pomanders Pomander watches (Fig. 7) were a peculiarity of the early sixteenth century and will be discussed irst. Given the lack of waste disposal services and sewage systems, medieval cities posed serious olfactory challenges to their inhabitants. These responded by carrying small spherical containers, pomanders or Bisamäpfel - musk balls - on their wrists or as buttons on their clothes and illed them with aromatic substances such as musk. This invention came from the Orient and became fashionable all over Europe. According to a contemporary source15 Peter Henlein was one of the irst to have constructed small watches into such containers.16 This may actually be his main invention: to build the watch into a ‘gadget’ that most of the target clientele (rich patricians) was carrying around anyway. We have to bear in mind that otherwise the demand for portable watches would have been rather limited in those days: it helps you to be on time, but if you are the only one to own the new accessory, ‘being on time’ becomes both a lonely and boring affair. It is a bit like being the only one to own a telephone ... 11. D. Matthes, ‘Corpus der deutschen Dosenuhren des 16. Jahrhunderts’, Appendix in T. Eser, Die älteste Taschenuhr der Welt? 12. Including the oldest dated piece from 1549 by Nicolaus Lanz from Innsbruck. 13. A neck watch with punch-mark ‘CS’ dated ‘1562’ in the Museo Poldi Pezzoli (Milan) has a separate ring on three lion feet for dual use as a table clock. 14. Karlsruhe Staatliche Kunsthalle, Painting Pankratz von Freyberg by Hans Mielich, 1545. 15. Neudörfer, Nachrichten von den vornehmsten Künstlern und Werkleuten, so innerhalb hundert Jahren in Nürnberg gelebt haben, 1547. 16. So strictly speaking, those were the earliest wristwatches we know of; but to avoid confusion, we will stick to the ‘pomander’ terminology here. 186 JUNE 2015 Fig. 7. Three pomander watches. Rear left: 1520–30 (private collection, Qatar), foreground left: dated 1530 (see footnote 17), right: around 1540 (private collection, Qatar); Photo: R.Schewe. Fig. 8a and b. Pomander watch, dated 1530, Walters Art Museum, Baltimore (foreground left in Fig 8) in a 3D Micro-Computer-Tomography by Fraunhofer Institut EZRT Fürth, Imaging: IKK, Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nürnberg. One of these pomander watches (Figs 8a and b) is particularly interesting as it is the world’s oldest dated watch, bearing the date 1530 and an inscription that links it to Philipp Melanchthon, the famous German reformer and collaborator of Martin Luther.17 The watches have a diameter of 4–4.8 cm and contain tiny iron movements that are rather exact miniaturized versions of the movements found in the larger 17. Baltimore, Walters Art Museum. The inscripion reads PHIL[IP]. MELA[NCHTHON]. GOTT. ALEIN. DIE. EHR[E]. 1530 (Philipp Melanchthon, to God alone the glory, 1530) 187 ANTIQUARIAN HOROLOGY cylindrical watches and table clocks of the time.18 In some pomander watches the movement contains an alarm mechanism constructed into the going train. Similarly to the cylindrical watches/table clocks, the shape and geometry require a movement that is almost as high as it is wide, making it a good candidate to be constructed with a fusee. However, like all other watches of the irst decades of the sixteenth century, all these pomander watches are unsigned. Henlein’s is the only name to be linked to building pomander watches in the early sixteenth century, both in the literature by Neudörfer with a cautious priority claim and in contemporary archives which for example state that Henlein was paid 15 lorin for a pomander watch.19 This has led to him being credited with making (all of) these in the past. Objectively, this is a possibility but not really likely: given that they had made enough impact to be quoted with praise in contemporary descriptions, other clockmakers would likely have copied the idea and made them as well. So we are left to speculate who made them. It certainly is the earliest type of watch for which we are certain about its shape – and also the irst portable timepiece to survive in an image.20 While we are also uncertain when and why people had the idea to make ‘watches’ in lat cylindrical cases, they have certainly proven the most versatile to use: worn on a cord around the neck in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, only to be used as ‘pocket watches’ in the eighteenth century, they were the ‘standard shape’ of a watch until the wristwatch triumphed in the early twentieth century. The earliest depiction of such a neck watch dates to 1545 (see note 14), but as we mentioned earlier, the constructive elements were already present Fig. 9. Leather purse, Southern Germany, 1st half 16th century, deerskin, 15cm high. Photo: Hermann Historica Auktionen, München. in 1533 (see note 8) in a real technical implementation, and in principle the idea even goes back to the late ifteenth century (see note 9). The third, largest (in terms of number of preserved specimens) and most famous group that can be linked to Peter Henlein are the ‘high’ cylindrical watches that have a dual use as table clocks. First, their use and hence the description as ‘watches’ or ‘clocks’ merits a discussion. It is certain that they cannot be worn on a cord or necklace around the neck as they do not have a ring on the case to attach them. However, we must bear in mind that in this transitional time, the irst half of the sixteenth century, the distinction of ‘a stationary timepiece with an alarm bell’ (hence ‘clock’ as the French cloche for the bell) and ‘a movable timepiece that can be permanently observed’ (hence ‘watch’ from the Middle English wacche for 18. Jakob Zech’s table-clock dated 1525 in the British Museum (London), on loan from the Society of Antiquaries, is the most famous example. 19. A. Gümbel, Peter Henlein der Erinder der Taschenuhr (Halle: Verlag Zentralverband der deutschen Uhrmacher e.V., 1924): ‘15 l Henlein fur ein vergulten pysn Appfel fur all ding mit einem Oaiologium’ (15 l. Henlein for a gilt musk-ball for all things with a watch) 20. Dr T. Eser (Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg) has identiied a painting by Christoph Amberger showing the sitter with a pomander watch in his hand, dated to 1530–1532 and hence probably pre-dating paintings with high cylindrical watches (Holbein, 1532) and neck watches (mentioned above, 1545); see T. Eser, Die älteste Taschenuhr der Welt? 188 JUNE 2015 Fig. 10. Portrait of the French King Henri II (1519–59) attributed to Francesco Primaticcio, and close-up of the timepiece. Photo Chantilly, Musée Condé. ‘keeping under observance’) was not yet clear-cut. The lat neck-watches we already discussed had a dual use as table-clocks until at least 1562 as witnessed by paintings depicting them with alarm surmounts (which can only be attached when the watch lies lat on a table) and also one piece dated 1562 which has a separate ring to be used as a foot to set it atop (see note 13) for use as a table-clock. The high cylindrical timepieces are of less obvious use as watches though. However, the earliest mention of portable timepieces (see note 1) indicates that they could be carried in your purse.21 (Fig. 9) This intention of keeping the timepiece ‘on the person’ is corroborated by a mid sixteenthcentury painting (Chantilly, Musée Condé) attributed to Francesco Primaticcio depicting King Henri II of France (1519– 1559) (Fig. 10) with his right hand holding a small high cylindrical timepiece as if picking it up or setting it down. Hence throughout this article, we will refer to them as watches to remind us of that dual use potential. These timepieces consist of small iron movements contained in cylindrical brass cases with a diameter of 48 mm or larger and a height around 50–90 per cent of the diameter. Amongst the group of 49 pieces that have an ‘easily portable’ diameter of 48–79 mm, six can be allocated to Augsburg and one each to Bern, Innsbruck and Nuremberg. A few pieces bear maker’s marks or inscriptions of a range of makers (both identiied and unidentiied), but the majority is unmarked as was the custom in the early sixteenth century and later as well. Two bear inscriptions ascribing them to Peter Henlein but both of these are much later and probably nineteenth-century additions in the exact text and font of Cochläus’ book (on which see note 1). Here, we want to draw attention to a very remarkable piece that – albeit slightly larger (diameter 91.5 mm, height 70.5 mm) – can be considered a ‘portable watch’ as much as in 1983 the Motorola DynaTAC 8000X, weighing 800g and measuring 300x44x89 mm, was considered a ‘mobile phone’, – something with which teenagers in 2015 would probably disagree! The watch (Fig. 11) consists of a cylindrical silver case with silver dials at the top and an iron skeletonized movement 21. Pockets in our sense of the word only became wide-spread in Europe throughout the sixteenth century. Previously, purses or pouches, worn on the belt or around the neck, were in use. Since those purses are larger than our trouser pockets today, they could easily hold such a timepiece. 189 ANTIQUARIAN HOROLOGY Fig. 11. Astronomical watch in a silver case, which the author ascribes to Peter Henlein and dates around 1524. British Museum, London. © Trustees of the British Museum. inside. There indications are time (arabic 24-hour dial with ‘arabic’ rather than Z-shaped 2 on one side, while the other side of the reversible ring shows hours 1-12), signs of the zodiac with engraved pictorial symbols, phase and age of the moon with aspects in the middle. One iron hand shows the hours, another iron pointer is attached to the aspects. The watch is in the British Museum22 and is remarkable or unique in three ways: • It has a case and dial made of gilt silver, and is the oldest one of only four watches/clocks of the sixteenth century with a precious metal case known to the author.23 (For another example see Fig. 12). The case of the watch shows the town hallmark of Nuremberg • It shows a peculiar construction of the • movement: the skeletonised plate has a section in the middle under which a holding arbor is attached to provide the bushings for the crown wheel and the verge axle. This rather advanced construction is found in ive of the 49 sixteenth-century drum watches. One of those can be traced in the inventory of the Esterhazy Kunstkammer24 since at least 1685, so we can be certain that this construction is not due to alteration of the movement e.g. in the nineteenth century (when many of these old watches were ‘improved’ or even ‘reconstructed’) It is, as we shall now show, the only timepiece that can be ascribed to Peter Henlein of Nuremberg with any degree of certainty 22. British Museum inv. nr. 1888, 1201.105. It was described and illustrated in J.H. Leopold, ‘Some early clocks from Nuremberg’, Antiquarian Horology 26/5 (March 2002), 505–526; p. 508 and on the journal cover. I am very grateful to the curator of horology, Paul Buck, for support and collaboration in the examination of this object. 23. The others are (a) a square table clock signed Stefan Brenner Copenhagen and dated 1553 in the Nationalmuseum, Stockholm (illustrated in Leopold, ‘Some early clocks from Nuremberg’, p. 515); (b) a table clock made of cast silver and embossed silver reliefs on brass background, Southern Germany, around 1570, private collection (see Fig 12); (c) a table clock made by David Altenstetter in 1583 for the German emperor (Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum, inv. nr. KK_1121). 24. Schloss Forchtenstein, Austria. I am grateful to J. Ehrt (certiied clock expert, Oldenburg) for pointing out this watch to me. 190 JUNE 2015 Fig. 12. Clock with a case of cast silver and embossed silver on brass background, with gilt silver reliefs in base, around 1570. One of four silver watches/clocks from the sixteenth century; private collection. 191 ANTIQUARIAN HOROLOGY Fig. 13. Left: hallmark on the bottom of the silver case of the astronomical watch in the British Museum illustrated in Fig. 12. Right: the Nuremberg hallmark it most closely resembles. The hallmark25 on the bottom of the silver case (Fig. 14a) has its closest resemblance in the mark BZ02b (Fig. 14b) in the list of Nuremberg hallmarks.26 The next hallmark was irst used on a dated piece in 1533, which makes it certain that the present watch was made prior to that year. The last dated use of this present hallmark was in 1522 however, leaving some uncertainty as to the exact dating. It will most likely have been between 1515 and the second half of the 1520s as far as the hallmark alone is concerned. That Peter Henlein acquired some, at least regional, fame in his day can not only be read in contemporary descriptions of Europe but can also be deducted from the fact that the city council of Nuremberg commissioned from him spring-driven clocks to be used as presents to dignitaries as well as weight-driven clocks for use in Nuremberg and surrounding towns such as Lichtenau and Hersbruck. Focusing on the spring-driven pieces, there are ten invoices from Henlein’s lifetime in the city accounts which refer to the purchase of self-going clocks.27 Three of them mention Henlein as the maker, six do not (and one was for a used clock). It has been inferred in the past that they might all be from Henlein and that he was a cityclockmaker of sorts. It is peculiar that no other maker is named (i.e. those six invoices state no name at all), but ascribing all of them to Henlein is speculation. The descriptions of the watches and clocks in the invoices are noteworthy. They are summarised in this table, drawn up from Gümbel’s 1924 book Peter Henlein der Erinder der Taschenuhr: Price Clock 28 1521 57 l. Clock in a silver case of unknown weight 1522 7 gulden Year 1522 29 26 l 1522 1523 35 l 72 gulden 14 Schillinge 4 Haller 2 cases: 1 Mark 12 Lot and 5 Lot 2 quentlein 30 Price for two clocks for the chancellor of the emperor in Spain 1524 15 l Pomander watch 1525 25l In addition 21,5 l for the silver case with a weight of 1,5 Mark 1529 7l ‘kleines Orlein’ (small watch) 1529 40 l Bought from the inheritance of Peter Imhoff 1541 100 l Orologium in a cristall sphere We want to analyze these invoices along two questions: 1. What are the weights of cases made of silver? 2. What was the pricing structure of clocks and watches in the 1520s? With regard to the irst question, we ind three cases certainly made of silver and with their weight given: 25. I am very grateful to Dr T. Eser (Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg) for support and valuable suggestions regarding hallmarks and silversmith works in the early sixteenth century as well as numerous suggestions regarding information and items of horology. 26. Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Tebbe, Timann, Eser, Schürer, Nürnberger Goldschmiedekunst 1541– 1868, (Nürnberg: Verlag des GNM, 2007). 27. Stadtarchiv Nuremberg, housed in the Staatsarchiv, Nuremberg. 28. All quoted clocks/watches are speciically described as selbstgehend (self-going). 29. This is the irst invoice in which Peter Henlein is named. 30. The price for worked silver was around 10–15 l per Mark, hence we can conclude that this reference is to cases made of silver. 192 JUNE 2015 Fig. 14. The invoice note from January 1525 for a timepiece by Peter Henlein in a silver case, transcribed and discussed here. Staatsarchiv Nuremberg, Inscribenda 1524 (III) Fol. 10a. • 1 Mark 12 Loth 31 • 5 Loth 2 Quäntlein 32 • 1,5 Mark • • The most common weight unit for silver in sixteenth-century Germany was the ‘Kölner Mark’ due to the irst Imperial coinage law of 1524 (Reichsmünzordnung).33 One Kölner Mark corresponds to 233.8 gram (with a small regional variation and variation over time). Hence 1.5 Mark correspond to 351 grams. So from the invoices we see that the weight of the silver cases was given rather accurately and that it was not standardised, i.e. it depended on the speciic shape and form of each piece, which is also conirmed by the preserved clocks and watches in brass cases. Considering now the second question on the pricing structure of clocks and watches in the 1520s, we ind that the following prices are being given: • • • 7 l for the cheapest timepieces (2x) 15 l for a pomander watch (1x) 36–57l for clocks in silver cases (4x) 100 l for a very special clock in a glass or cristal sphere for highest imperial court oficials For some clocks/watches with prices of 26 l, 40 l etc. we know neither the shape nor the material of the case with certainty The two that we can certainly identify as watches are surprisingly cheap (7 l. for a timepiece referred to with the double diminutive ‘kleines Orlein’ (small watch) and 15 l. for a pomander watch). This indicates that already in 1521, a miniature clock was no longer worth a ‘premium’ on the price. Since the movements are constructed from iron, which in contrast to silver is not traded by weight, we may infer that the more expensive timepieces were not simply larger, but also more complex than the cheaper ones. It is now enlightening to draw attention to one speciic invoice (Fig. 14) of those given in the table, namely: 31. 1 Loth is 1⁄16 Mark. 32. 1 Quäntlein is ¼ Loth or 1⁄64 Mark. 33. August Flor, Münz-Zustände (Altona, 1838), p. 3. 193 ANTIQUARIAN HOROLOGY 7.1. – 9.1. 1525: 25 l dem Henlein für selbstgeend arologium fur sein arbait, 8 schillinge trinckg(elt), 21½ l. Dem Richl fur das gehewß wigt pei 1½ mark silbers vergult, mitsamt dem trinckgelt, 7 schillinge. (Jan. 7 – Jan 9, 1525: 25 l to Henlein for a self-going orologium34 for his work, 8 schillinge tip, 21½ l. for Richl for the case which weights 1½ mark silver gilt, plus the tip of 7 schillinge) The silversmith referred to is Wolf Richel (also Rühel or Ruchl), Master 27.7. 1519 – 1548.35 This invoice is a remarkably accurate description of the watch in the British Museum: • • Made in Nuremberg in the 1520s Self-going (i.e. spring-driven) • • The case is made of silver Gilt in addition (which was standard for brass items but not for silver items) • The price indicates a more complex watch, for example with astronomical indications as the present watch shows • Most importantly, the weight given in the invoice (1.5 Mark = 351 g) is in exact agreement with the weight of the piece in question: the weight of the silver case is 350.4 grams.36 We conclude that the correspondence between the description in the invoice and the watch in the British Museum is too exact to be a coincidence. Hence we ascribe the piece to Peter Henlein, made in late 1524 in Nuremberg with a high degree of certainty. It surely is the oldest watch in a silver case and the oldest spring-driven watch to be preserved from Nuremberg. 34. This can refer to a watch or a clock 35. Tebbe e.a., Nürnberger Goldschmiedekunst 1541–1868, vol. I Meister, Werke, Marken, part 1 (text), number 718. Rühl’s workshop was on Obstgasse 1, his grave is in St. Johannis cemetery, grave 845. Only one further piece is known by him, one half of a double cup in the Kremlin Armoury in Moscow. 36. This weight includes the silver dials and also the iron hour hand. The weight of the hand alone is 2.41 grams – which is within the accuracy in the context of invoices for silversmith works by weight in the 16th century. 194