Clock

Simon Willard

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

In 1822 the highly inventive and successful Massachusetts clockmaker Simon Willard advertised that "the President of the United States has granted him a PATENT for his newly invented ALARUM TIMEPIECE that will run for 8 days with one winding, and keep exact time." Accompanying the newspaper advertisement was a wood engraving of a clock identical to this one, down to its ball feet and gilded brass appliqué on the octagonal base. Nowhere in the advertisement is the timepiece referred to as a "lighthouse clock," a name assigned to it at a later date on account of its shape. This example retains its original blown-glass dome with applied swirl decoration. The clock has a dummy bell and no alarm, however, indicating that the latter was optional.

The American Wing

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The American Wing's ever-evolving collection comprises some 20,000 works of art by African American, Euro American, Latin American, and Native American men and women. Ranging from the colonial to early-modern periods, the holdings include painting, sculpture, works on paper, and decorative arts—including furniture, textiles, ceramics, glass, silver, metalwork, jewelry, basketry, quill and bead embroidery—as well as historical interiors and architectural fragments.

Metropolitan Museum of Art