Weight-driven Japanese clock

Height (from the top of the bell to the base): 49 cm.

Size of the clock: 16× 16.2× 24 cm.

Base width: 17×17 cm.

 

A Japanese clock is a mechanical clock that has been made to tell traditional Japanese time. Mechanical clocks were introduced into Japan by Jesuit missionaries or Dutch merchants in the sixteenth century. These clocks were of the lantern clock design, typically made of brass or iron. Tokugawa Ieyasu owned a lantern clock of European manufacture.Neither the pendulum nor the balance spring were in use among European clocks of the period, and as such they were not included among the technologies available to the Japanese clockmakers at the start of the isolationist period in Japanese history, which began in 1641. The isolationist period meant that Japanese clockmakers would have to find their own way without further inputs from Western developments in clockmaking.

 There are three Japanese clocks on display in the clocks gallery. This beautiful weight-driven mechanical clock is the one with two golden monograms on its body. The four weights, made of brass in different sizes, are attached to either ends of two strings which are driven by cogwheels. Names of the months in Japanese script are inscribed around the numerals on the clock face. The embossed figures on three sides of the clock body add to its beauty.