Delaware Clocks exhibition to open at the Biggs Museum

Wednesday, 11 October 2006 08:27

Dover, DE - Antique clocks have been a subject of popular imagination for generations.  These time pieces were the subject of folk songs like “Grandfather’s Clock” (Henry Clay Work, 1876), a child’s fable starting with the words “Hickory, dickory, dock,” and are also featured in the modern Disney re-creation of Beauty and the Beast.   Americans developed a profound appreciation for these romantic objects, with clocks becoming treasured heirlooms.  Their faces stare outward as a constant reminder of the passage of time while their ticking hearts give an almost human presence.

The Biggs Museum’s exhibition, Delaware Clocks, celebrates the region’s love affair with locally made tall-case and table clocks of the 18^th and 19^th centuries.  The show, open from November 8, 2006 through February 25, 2007, features nearly twenty of the finest timepieces made in Delaware during the Golden Age of American clock manufacture.  Ranging in age from 1740 to 1815, this chronological overview of clocks and their makers is told through close-up observations of clock movement and case design.  The exhibition is designed for adults and children alike, with multiple ways to see and understand these ornate antique machines.

The Delaware Clock opening reception is also the formal launch of the museum’s first exhibition publication in over three years.  Delaware Clocks chronicles the research for the exhibition while adding thorough examinations of more than thirty clocks with over 75 illustrations.  This beautiful publication compliments the museum’s two-volume catalog of the permanent collection published in 2002 while supplying rich and unique information to the studies of American decorative arts and Delaware history.