A VERY RARE LATE VICTORIAN/EDWARDIAN BRONZE NOVELTY CLOCK of...

Hammer

£170

A VERY RARE LATE VICTORIAN/EDWARDIAN BRONZE NOVELTY CLOCK of Cricketing interest, formed with a central drum form enamelled dial, encased within a pair of cricket bats, wicket keeping gloves & a leather ball. 22 cm x 17 cm. Note: The earliest surviving working novelty clocks were German automata made in Augsburg in the 1650s involving mechanical figures, either of human or animal form, which performed as the hour struck. They include dogs, and, most extraordinary for the early date, cockerels which flapped their wings and opened and closed their mouth, often making a crowing sound. The earliest novelty clock in history is the celebrated crowing cock of the Strasbourg Cathedral clock, made in 1354 and now preserved in the Strasbourg Museum.