Selections from Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach’s collection. Her bequest was one of the founding gifts of the museum
While that’s a pretty catchy name for a headline, and the Vienna Clock Museum has been called that, but it’s a bit of an exaggeration; there are barely more than 3,000 pieces in the collection and only over 1,000 on display. But a ‘timely’ visit will leave you feeling you’ve seen even more.
The museum, which got its start from two private collections in 1917, is one of the premier time museums of the world. It’s housed in the Palais Obizzi, the 17th century mansion of a Burgundian soldier of fortune serving Austria’s emperors.
Before Vienna’s clockmakers had their first golden age in the late 17th century, sundials played an important timekeeping role. Not just the flat-in-the-ground ones, but more elaborate devices as well, such as the ring-shaped one above. New to me: the idea of a pocket sundial, with a small compass built in so it could be properly aligned with the sun. The smartwatch of its era! George G recognized it as our One-Clue Mystery this week.
Two unusual ideas: a light-up clock, and what amounts to an electric bell. The 17th century ‘night clock’ had space inside for a candle or small lamp, and a small hole at the top of the rotating dial. Light shining through the hole provided enough glow to read the clock; not visible is the flue that let smoke escape. Two hundred years later, the bell, with hammer behind it, was mounted at the main firehouse; an electric impulse from the city observatory started it chiming 22 seconds before noon each day, finishing on the dot.
A gorgeous and elaborate pocket-watch with exposed mechanism, and some more 19th century clocks, with their cases and frameworks showing new styles of art and design.
The 19th century also brought the ability to make much smaller but still fully functional mechanisms. This enabled a trend? a fad? for incorporating clocks into a variety of household objects, especially pictures. The painting of St Stephan’s Cathedral in Vienna not only has a clock face, but two sets of chimes. One replicates the church’s full and quarter-hour striking, while the other plays a bell tune at noon, 6 pm and 6 am.
Musical clocks of other sorts were popular as well; some so elaborate that you might think of them as organs that tell time rather than clocks that play music. Some had several tunes in their repertoire. The Swiss-made one just above has a working harp concealed behind the fretwork.
Elaborate floor-standing versions could play quite a few tunes; some from built-in mechanisms and some later models controlled by punched rolls, similar to a player piano or large music box.
The two imposing instruments just above also kept track of astronomical movements, while the one below is a one-trick pony of sorts: the rider’s eyes move back and forth with the ticking of the clock.
The 19th century’s rapid industrial change was reflected in time-keeping as well. Tall-case clocks became industrial rather than artisanal, and began to appear in more and more middle-class Austrian homes. Vienna was one of Europe’s centers of the clockmaking industry.
Taking the picture clock to a new level with automation, as it were, this 1833 clock incorporates not only a clock in the church tower, but also three sections of movable glass rods to represent moving water. Two gear trains, tied to the clock mechanism activate the waterfall, the millstream and the water wheel.
Some more of the many elaborate mantelpiece clocks in varying styles and a selection of clocks incorporating globes.
And an extraordinary selection of fine watches, including some of the best-known names such as Rolex and Patek-Philippe. Emperor Joseph II started a watchmaking school and industry just outside the city, giving a spur to place Vienna on a plane with Geneva for watches.
You might be surprised to know that the device below is also a watch, the world’s first quartz-mechanism watch. Obviously not meant to be worn on a wrist, it was developed by Patek-Phillipe as a first step toward the quartz watches that came to market in the 1960s.
There’s even a section displaying cuckoo clocks, although they are almost always Swiss or German, while the museum emphasizes Austrian, and especially Viennese clocks.
The Clock Museum is one of the many parts of the Vienna Museum, the city’s collection of museums reflecting various aspects of the city’s history, including the main history museum which re-opened last year in its renovated and expanded site at Karlsplatz. I would have loved to visit again, but misread 2023 as 2025 for the re-opening date.
Above and below, some more pictures of clocks too good, too unusual or just too many to ignore, including the very industrial pair immediately above.
