The religious carvings on the case and dial depict the life of Christ—the annunciation, the manger scene, Christ bearing the cross to Calvary, the crucifixion, and possibly the resurrection. Also shown are Mary standing with child, the dove of the Holy Spirit, the Angel Gabriel, and what may be two saints, one with staff, the other with what appears to be a book. During the Renaissance the great painters of Flanders found these subjects most appealing, perhaps more so than elsewhere. This might suggest a source of the crucifix. However, in the early part of the sixteenth century, watchmaking was not one of the arts of Flanders but rather of southern Germany and Italy.

John H. Leopold in The Almanus Manuscript describes and illustrates thirty clocks of the period 1475-85. These clocks use a circular balance above the movement. Assuming most, if not all, of these are Italian, a circular balance is an early Italian feature. In the early German clocks and watches the balance was frequently in the form of a foliot or bar, often resembling a dumbbell. In that the ivory crucifix watch has a circular balance, as did Italian clocks, and that some writers speculate that the first watches were Italian, the watch might be of Italian origin. Certainly Italy was the seat of the Holy Roman Church, to which the watch seems dedicated.

The mainspring of the ivory crucifix movement was never in a barrel. Clutton and Daniels illustrate in their book Watches (third edition 1979, Figures 59c and 60c), two iron drum movements of the 16th century, probably German, with mainsprings not in barrels. Unlike the ivory crucifix watch, both German movements have stackfreeds. Clutton and Daniels state, “The earliest watches had unprotected springs hooked to a pillar between the plates at the outer end and to the great wheel arbor at the inner end.” Obviously they had no spring barrel, no worm spring setup, and no fusee. This is exactly the case for the ivory crucifix watch. Giuseppe Brusa shows in L’Arte Dell’orologeria in Europa, Fig. 105, a table clock movement, probably German, with a mainspring not in a barrel that he dates c. 1570.

The movement train of this crucifix watch is typical of many early German clocks and watches. The brass great wheel, with mainspring arbor, drives the ivory pinion on the second wheel that drives the ivory third wheel and pinion, which in turn drives the ivory pinion of the contrate wheel. The ivory contrate wheel drives the metal pinion for the ivory crown wheel. The great wheel metal arbor projects through the upper plate to drive an ivory gear that meshes with a similar ivory wheel on the short arbor passing through the ivory dial plate and upon which the single ivory hand is mounted.

The ivory dial with a single ivory hand has Roman numerals and “IV” is used for the fourth hour. This is rather rare but definitely was used in the 16th and 17th centuries. Brusa illustrates, Figure 153, a very large wall dial of 1583 with “IV” for the fourth numeral. Guye & Michel in Time & Space, page 87, show a copper engraving of a dial of 1627 with IV, and on page 89 show another late 17th century dial engraving again using the IV. Henry Abbot in Antique Watches and How to Establish Their Age, page 118, shows an engraving of a book watch by Dionistus Hessichti dated 1627, and in Plate 125, a watch c. 1635 by Gio Batt Mascarone, London, both using “IV.” (E. J. Tyler claims the Hessichti dial is an error by the engraver and that it is more correctly IIII.) In Klaus Maurice’s Die Deutsche Raderuhr is shown an illustration of an inclined plane clock of 1680 with two “IVs” on the dial. Fig. 55 shows three clocks pictured in a catalogue of 1670/80 with “IV,” on one of which the dial engraver reversed the IV and VI. (Such errors can easily occur because the engraver may be copying another engraving using a mirror.) Fig. 58 shows a 1673 drawing of a Christian Huygens clock with “IV” on the dial. Fig. 121 is a 1724 engraving of a German illuminated night clock with “IV.” Fig. 134 shows “IV” on a clock dial engraving. In Vol. II, Maurice shows in Fig. 4 the great clock in the Palazzo del Capitano in Padua by Jacopo de’Dondi of 1344. The dial uses “IV” at least twice. Fig. 33 shows a very complex mathematical dial c. 1620 using “IV” at least four times. In Fig. 1001 he shows a very complicated multi-dial of 1771 using “IV” five or more times and also uses “IIII” at least once. In the 1660s Joseph Knibb used “IV” for his long-duration clocks with Roman striking. Mr. E.J. Tyler wrote a very definitive and well-documented article on the history of “IV” and “IIII,” citing many examples. He correctly concludes that both methods were used from the 16th into the 20th century.

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