News
In Chicago, the TIME exhibition at the Museum of Science and Industry is now closed. From January 2001 through February 2004, the collection was viewed by over two million visitors. Now that the exhibition is concluded, the remaining clocks and watches will be sold at auction in October, 2004. For more information about this, please contact the Sotheby's Clock and Watch Department: (212) 606-7184.
Among the clocks, watches and instruments which will be sold is the Orrery Clock by Raingo à Paris, c.1820-1824, shown at the left. The clock shows the motion of earth and moon. This is one of only 8 known orreries by Raingo. Of the others, one was acquired originally by King George IV and is located in the royal library at Windsor Castle. Others can be found in the Glasgow Art Gallery; Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers, Paris; Palais de Cinquentenaire, Brussels; and the Royal Collection in Madrid.
There have been auctions
at Sotheby's in New York on December 2, 1999 and June 19, 2002 and in London
on October 30, 2002.
History
Formerly located within the Best Western Clock Tower Resort & Conference Center in Rockford, Illinois USA., The Time Museum, an international collection of time-measuring devices, was open to the public for almost 30 years. It was closed in March, 1999.
The idea behind The Time Museum was to illustrate the most significant technical developments in the history of time measurement. Included in the 1,500-object collection were sundials, nocturnals, water clocks, sand-glasses, chronometers, and astronomical regulators as well as domestic clocks and watches. Most time-measuring devices in the collection dated from the 17th- through 19th- centuries and were European or British in origin. The American section focused upon clocks from Colonial times through about 1870 and watches from the 1850's through about 1920.
American Pocket Watches by Donald Hoke
Chronometers by Anthony Randall
Astrolabes by Anthony Turner.