Creator
Magneta
Title
Subsidiary clock
Category
Inscriptions and markings
on dial: ‘Magneta' in centre. Around circumference: 'Patent + No. 19701 | D. R. P. | U. S. A. Juli 5th 1900 July 24th 1901 | Brevete s.g.d.g'
Provenance
Robert Simon collection; purchased November 2013.
Overview
Made by the Magneta company at the beginning of the twentieth century, this ornate clock boasts a brass ‘sunburst’ design. It is a subsidiary dial: its hands move in response to regular electrical impulses from a controlling clock. It was probably intended for one of the Swiss firm’s more prestigious installations. Similar dials were installed in the lobby of the Westin St Francis hotel, San Francisco, and on the doomed grand staircase of RMS Titanic.
In depth
This is a subsidiary clock, designed to ‘receive’ the time from a controlling clock or impulse transmitter. It was made by the Swiss Magneta Company, and features a brass ‘sunburst’ pattern surrounded by a silvered outer ring with ornamental black Arabic numerals, mounted in a wooden frame with protective glass bevel.
This 'sunburst’ dial was one of Magneta’s more expensive designs. Dials to the same pattern surmounted ornate controlling clocks in prominent installations at the Westin St Francis Hotel in San Francisco (1907) and the Singer Building in New York (1908). Magneta also installed clock systems on prominent ocean liners of this period, including the Luisitania and Mauretania: a similar dial with silver numerals (this time Roman) and a decorative brass design inside its chapter ring is also indistinctly visible in surviving images of the forward grand staircase on RMS Olympic. On the staircase’s top floor, this Magneta dial was inserted into a carved wooden frieze of ‘Honour and Glory Crowning Time’ – an assemblage made famous by its replication on another Magneta commission, the Olympic’s doomed sister, RMS Titanic.
The Clockworks clock was acquired in 2013, along with a Magneta marine impulse transmitter (TCW1032), a coincidence which may suggest it too was originally installed on a ship, though Magneta’s clients of the Edwardian era also included a wide range of hotels, banks, department stores and prominent office buildings.
Dimensions
52 cm diameter (in wooden frame) x 8 cm deep
Inventory number
TCW 1029
Date
c.1901-1912
Bibliography
Magneta, ‘Magneta Co. New York: Electric Clock Systems Without Batteries or Contacts’, New York, c.1908.
O. E. Semsch (ed.), A History of the Singer Building Construction; its progress from foundation to flagpole (New York: 1908)
Robert Simon, ‘The Marine Master Clock’, National Association of Watch and Clock Collectors, NAWCC Bulletin (April 2008), 50:2, no. 373, pp.161-174
Robert Simon, private correspondence