Rare and small Danish deck chronometer with power reserve Circa 1875

Deck chronometer by Carl Christian Wildschiödtz

A rare and small Danish power reserve deck chronometer in a mahogany box, circa 1875. Brass movement, ∅ 65 mm, chain and fusee, a spring detent escapement according to Thomas Earnshaw, an experimental bimetallic chronometer balance with two screws and two weights. Silvered dial with Roman hours, an outer minute track, subsidiary seconds at 6 o’clock, power reserve indicator at 12 and blued steel heavy moon hands. Dial signed, movement numbered.
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Dimensions: 150 x 155 x 150 mm
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Signed: Wildschiödtz Kiöbenhavn
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Carl Christian Wildschiödtz is rarely found in literature and even more rarely on the market. Nevertheless, he is no stranger to the world and has worked with famous watchmakers throughout his life. Accordingly, this small chronometer is also a finely crafted instrument, on which the unusual balance is to be emphasized. The weights are not fixed on the balance rim, but radially sprung, so that they follow it when the balance rim expands and contracts.

Wildschiødtz was born in Copenhagen on December 30, 1824, as the son of a tailor. He was apprenticed at the age of 15 and later went to Paris to Winnerl for about two years. Here his skills and knowledge developed to such an extent that he participated in the manufacture of Winnerl’s astronomical pendulum clock. In 1848, he returned to Denmark to participate in the war in Holstein, which he did not join after all. Probably Louis Urban Jürgensen helped to keep him at home.

Wildschiødtz joined Urban Jürgensen & Sønner and stayed here for 12 years, where he created many important works and had the opportunity to show what he had learned abroad. At the 1873 World Exhibition in Vienna, he was listed in the Danish section as a clock and chronometer maker from Copenhagen with the work of an astronomical pendulum clock and a transparent disc for a tower clock. Around this time, he tried, unsuccessfully, to establish the first watchmakers’ association in Denmark. In 1876, he was then elected chairman of the Clockmakers’ Association founded on April 7, 1875, after which he devoted the rest of his life to the association, partly at the Clockmakers’ Association and partly in his company. For his services, he was knighted by Dannebrog on November 12, 1892. He died in Copenhagen on March 9, 1897.