201 - Josef Nicolaus - Senftenberg

Josef Nicolaus - Senftenberg A significant, museum-quality Bohemian deck chronometer in a silver case Movm. No. 17, Case No. 17, Dimensions 54 mm, circa 1875, Weight 139 g, Origin Böhmen Case: Silver, smooth. Dial: Silver. Movm.: 4/5 plate movement, 1 barrel, spring detent escapement according to Thomas Earnshaw, bimetallic chronometer balance with screws and unusual weights, freesprung blued helical balance spring. Josef Nicolaus (1855-1923) was a renowned maker and collector in Vienna; he was born in Senftenberg in Bohemia, where he trained before spending some time in Geneva and then working in Vienna after 1885. He lived and worked as a reclusive, highly specialised craftsman in Vienna in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He became known, amongst other things, for producing precise observatory and pocket chronometers (some in large-format cases) that met the strict military specifications of the Austrian Navy. Watches made by Nicolaus himself are extremely rare today. Nicolaus only made very few timepieces himself, but the collection he put together seems to have been quite extensive; he eventually sold the watches to the watch museum in Vienna around the end of the First World War - for instance for a batch of coal during the hard winter of 1918. Unfortunately most of these hundreds of rare timepieces were lost during the Second World War. Watches made by Nicolaus hardly ever come on the market and they are always of supreme quality. The watch museum in Vienna owns some of his pieces, among them a seconds pendulum clock and some pocket chronometers. This heavy deck watch is a testament to the skill of this most eminent of Austrian chronometer designers and makers. A detailed report on Josef Nicolaus is available in Klassik Uhren 5/1994, Munich 1994, pages 29-34. Case: very good, worn. Dial: very good, slightly oxydized. Movm.: very good, slightly repaired, capable of running, cleaning recommended.