The Tower
De Vick’s Clock of 1379
The verge-and-foliot ancestor of every watch.
- Work
- Rees's Cyclopaedia, horology plates
- Maker
- After Abraham Rees (ed.)
- Date
- c. 1810s (depicting 1379)
- Held by
- via Wikimedia Commons (PD-old)
- License
- Public domain
- Master
- 1276×1368px
Format
The full-resolution scan, color-managed to the source — yours to print, study, and explore.
Size
Sizes are capped to what this piece’s real source scan honestly supports — we never enlarge past the engraving.
$29.00
The story
Henri de Vick's clock, built around 1379 for Charles V of France, is the textbook ancestor: the earliest well-documented mechanical clock in the modern line, verge escapement and foliot balance ticking above Paris four centuries before the pendulum. This plate from Rees's Cyclopaedia is how the nineteenth century learned that story — the primitive frame drawn with complete seriousness, because everything in every watch descends from exactly this arrangement of weight, rope, and restraint.
See it on your wall
The mechanism, made for a room
De Vick’s Clock of 1379 printed large and framed, hung in rooms like yours. Every edition ships ready to become the piece the room is built around.
About this reproduction
- A faithful reproduction of an open-access work held by via Wikimedia Commons (PD-old), served under the institution’s stated license (Public domain) — source linked below.
- Printed to order on 200gsm EMA matte art paper or 400gsm canvas; framed pieces sit behind acrylic.
- The artwork is never cropped and never enlarged past its scan — sizes stop where the engraving stops holding.
- Ships in 5–10 business days, rolled in a heavy-wall tube (framed pieces ship flat-packed).
- If it arrives less than perfect, we reprint or refund — your choice.
Source: via Wikimedia Commons (PD-old) — the scan this reproduction is printed from, and the page documenting its public-domain / open-access status. We are unaffiliated with any watch manufacturer, past or present.
