Kessels

Kessels, Altona, No. 1303, circa 1830. Very fine silver pocket and deck chronometer in three-part mahogany fitted display box. Four-body, "bassine et filets", polished, silver hinged cuvette. White enamel, radial Roman numerals, outer minute track, five-minute Arabic markers, subsidiary seconds at 12. Blued steel "spade" hands. Notes Heinrich Johannes Kessels (1781-1849). He began his career as a blacksmith in Holland, his native country. Subsequently, he went to Paris and studied watchmaking with Breguet. Afterwards he went to England where he stayed with the Muston brothers, chronometer makers in Bristol. In 1821 he left for Copenhagen and secured the patronage of King Frederick VI, who induced him to settle in Altona, then Danish territory. Kessels had an excellent reputation, his contemporaries praising him highly. He was appointed chronometer maker to the Danish Navy, and became a member of the both the Royal Society of Sciences in Stockholm and the Mathematical Society in Hamburg. His chronometers show a strong English influence but are also very consistent with the Breguet style. Kessels also made observatory clocks with a Graham escapement that he modified, in which the anchor embraced only 6 teeth of the 30-tooth wheel. These were purchased by many observatories, including Kensington, Athens, Stockholm, Lund, Moscow, and Cracow.