Dutch restore clocks from Beijing museum

The three clocks are part the largest collection of musical clocks worldwide and were made by Western artisans, primarily British.

The first three clocks were transported to Utrecht, central Netherlands, in early February to be restored by the world-renowned Utrecht National Museum from Musical Clock to Street Organ.

“The clocks came into possession of successive Chinese emperors from the 17th century onwards. There is no documentation about their exact date of arrival, so that it is not always known which clocks were given to which emperors,” the museum’s curator Bob van Wely told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

In 2010, 20 musical clocks are to be exhibited in the museum. It marks the first time Chinese state treasures will be exhibited to the public outside Chinese territory.

“Musical clocks date back to Western Europe of the 13th century, with written sources referring to musical clocks already in the 9th century,” van Wely says.

“What initially started as a musical clock developed into a fully-fledged automatic musical instrument, such as a pianola, by the early 20th century. The era ends with the invention of the gramophone, of course,” he explains.

“The clocks of the Chinese collection are the most beautiful in the world. Even the finest West-European clocks are primarily pragmatic. But European clocks made for the oriental market are exquisite pieces of art.”

According to the curator, famous clock makers such as James Cox and John Pike designed clocks that had a lot of what we would call bling today: gold, jewels, crystal and frills.

“The clocks were often small towers or boxes, entirely covered with gold; gold that was melted into dancers, trees, bells, animals. These clocks are examples of unparalleled artisanship.”

This type of antique clocks are auctioned for 500,000 to 800,000 euros (US$760,575 to US$1.2 million) per piece — though Van Wely considers that pieces from the Chinese imperial collection could be worth substantially more.

Van Wely had always known the Forbidden City owned a beautiful collection, but did not know the extent of it. Nor did he know the Chinese were so eager to cooperate with the Utrecht Museum.