Mattheus Hallaÿcher

Mattheus Hallaÿcher, Augusta (Augsburg), circa 1675. Fine and extremely rare silver spherical watch, the movement with pendulum regulator, fitted in a gimballed suspension. Two piece spherical fully engraved with concentrical rows of formal decoration. Steel gimbal suspension. Gilt brass with Roman numerals, the centre engraved with scrolling foliage. Blued steel elaborated single hand. Gilt brass full plate, the ballasted back plate engraved with foliage decoration, fusee with chain, verge escapement, short brass bob pendulum.Signed on the back plate.Diam. 53 mm. Notes Provenance: Formerly in the Bernard Franck Collection, Paris.This watch was described and illustrated by S. Guye and H. Michel in Mesure du temps et de l'espace, Fribourg, 1970, p. 85, pl. 6a.When studying the history of technology and its influence on scientific and economic development, it is only too easy to concertina the time frame associated with the introduction of a particular invention, and to assume that its proper function was widely and immediately understood.1 For example, the application of the pendulum to a clock by Christian Huygens in 1657 - perhaps the most important advance in the history of precision timekeeping - seems totally obvious to anyone with the slightestinterest in horology today, and for the slightly more curious, it seems incomprehensible that a man of such consumate skill as Jost Burgi did not bridge the gap between his cross-beat escapement and the simple pendulum.Howeve