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The Encyclopedia of Horology

Clock type · Specialist

Night Clocks (Lantern-Lit Timepieces)

Needs research

Clocks designed to show the time in darkness without striking, typically by illuminating a pierced dial from behind with a lamp or candle, allowing the hour to be read at a glance by someone waking in the night without disturbing a household with a strike.

Movement & mechanism

  • A pierced or fretted dial, often with a rotating hour disc rather than conventional hands, through which lamplight shines from a compartment behind
  • Usually a going (time-only) train, without a strike, since the purpose was silent night-time reading rather than audible signalling
  • Housed in a case with a lamp or candle recess positioned behind the dial

Identification

  • A pierced, fretted or numeral-cut dial designed to transmit lamplight, rather than a conventional solid dial
  • A lamp or candle housing built into the rear of the case
  • A rotating hour disc reading against a fixed pointer, in some designs, rather than conventional hands

Terminology

  • Pendule de nuit — the French term for a night clock
  • Lamp clock — an alternative English term emphasising the illumination method

Known variations

  • Rotating-disc night clocks
  • Pierced-dial lamp-illuminated night clocks

Collecting notes

Night clocks are a relatively rare and specialist seventeenth- and eighteenth-century category; surviving examples with an intact original lamp compartment and pierced dial are of particular interest to collectors of unusual horological forms.

Related photographs

Bracket clock movement
Bracket clock movement — Unknown authorUnknown author, Public domain. Wikimedia Commons file page
Clocks; a bracket clock formerly in the possession of the Ea Wellcome V0023857
Clocks; a bracket clock formerly in the possession of the Ea Wellcome V0023857 — Unattributed Wikimedia Commons contributor, CC BY 4.0. Wikimedia Commons file page
Bracket Clock MET 241216
Bracket Clock MET 241216 — Creator:Stephen Van Wyck, CC0. Wikimedia Commons file page

No confidently matched photograph of this subject has been found yet. These photographs show a closely related record, and are not examples of the type described on this page.

Sources & references

  1. General historical references note the existence and rough period of night clocks; detailed maker and regional production histories require further research.

Where sources disagree, the disagreement is stated rather than resolved silently.