German exquisite rare small ship’s chronometer Circa 1840

Ship’s chronometer in a mahogany box by Johann Heinrich Kessels
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A rare important German expedition ship’s chronometer, circa 1840.
Mahogany box, the elevator in the bottom, cylindrical brass case with laterally screwed bezel, original key with matching numbers. Very fine, early chronometer movement with rare fine adjustment. Original signed dial with large seconds scale, 54-hour power reserve indicator, Roman radial hours, outer minutes track with Arabic five minutes numerals, and blued Breguet steel hands.
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Diameter: 48 mm
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Dimension box: 115 x 115 x 60 mm
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Signed: Kessels Altona
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The chronometer 1313 is mentioned in the Astronomische Nachrichten of 1842. Expedition chronometers from Kessels are absolute rarities and are rarely offered.
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The watchmaker Kessels came from Maastricht and came to Altona at the beginning of the 19th century, where he had a workshop and apartment in Kleine Mühlenstrasse. When the astronomer Schumacher moved to Altona in 1821, opened the Altona observatory and published the Astronomical News, close contacts soon developed with Kessels. Probably because the linguistically gifted Schumacher was able to help the still French-speaking Kessel.
Kessels, born on May 15th, 1781, in Maastricht, Holland, and died of cholera on July 15th, 1849, in Claverhem near Bristol, was one of the most important chronometer makers active in Germany – if he wasn’t the most famous from the early days. Altona was still part of Denmark at the time. Still, in the understanding of the Germans, it is a German city. It, therefore, is also listed as a German watchmaker in literature. After staying in London and Copenhagen, he worked in Paris with Abraham Breguet and Winnerl and settled in Altona, where he started his own business. He quickly became famous as a chronometer maker for the Danish Navy. In addition to ship chronometers, he also built pocket chronometers and astronomical pendulum clocks.