"The Art of Timekeeper: Masterpieces from The Winthrop Edey Bequest"
2001-11-14 until 2002-02-24
Frick Collection
New York, NY, USA

With its major fall and winter exhibition, The Frick Collection introduces to the public a significant gift of clocks and watches from the estate of a remarkable collector and scholar, Winthrop Kellogg Edey (1937-1999). The Art of the Timekeeper: Masterpieces from the Winthrop Edey Bequest features a group of thirteen clocks and eight watches selected from a larger, multi-faceted gift—many of which are on view for the first time. Ranging in date from the sixteenth through the nineteenth centuries, arguably the most remarkable period in the history of timekeeping, they reveal the breadth of Edey’s passion for collecting.

Ranging in date from the sixteenth through the nineteenth centuries, arguably the most remarkable period in the history of timekeeping, they reveal the breadth of Edey’s passion for collecting.

They also illustrate several significant technical developments that influenced the design and appearance of clocks and watches and offer a sense of the impact that improved methods of timekeeping had upon the growth of Western civilization.

IMAGE
Small drum-shaped table clock, ca. 1550
Signed “M”, probably Augsburg
H. 1.5 in.
Steel movement; engraved gilt-brass case
The Frick Collection, New York; Bequest of Winthrop Kelly Edey, 1999
Photograph: Richard di Liberto