620 - Weather station with carved fox, wall barometer and thermometer, wood carving with animal motif

Weather station with carved fox, wall barometer and thermometer, wood carving with animal motif Wood, glass and metal, weather station with barometer and thermometer, also wall barometer, carved wood. At the top a tree trunk with branch stumps and inset thermometer with double scale "R" and "C" for Réaumur and Celsius, below it a fully carved running fox with lowered head on a rock-like base with tufts of grass. In the base a round aneroid barometer with gold-coloured metal rim, white dial with central window onto the movement, inscribed "STURM", "Regen oder Wind", "VERÄNDERLICH", "Schön Wetter" and "BESTÄNDIG", one black and one blue hand. Back with hanging loop and round metal back of the barometer. Condition commensurate with age, slightly soiled inside, wood and metal partly rubbed. 36x18x5 cm (HxWxD). A weather station is a wall ornament that combines barometer and temperature display in a carved frame. The round dial barometer works on the principle of the aneroid barometer: an evacuated, thin-walled metal capsule deforms with rising or falling air pressure and moves the hand via a mechanism. After its inventor Lucien Vidie, who patented the process in 1844, it is called a Vidie capsule. Weather indications such as "Stormy", "Rain" or "Set fair" have appeared on barometer scales since the late 18th century and translate the reading into an everyday forecast. The Réaumur scale was introduced by René-Antoine Ferchault de Réaumur in 1730; it puts the boiling point of water at 80 degrees and remained in use in Germany until official temperature measurement switched to Celsius in 1901.