Exhibitions: Unique monuments of watchmaking art are presented at the Hermitage

In the Blue Bedroom of the Winter Palace was opened an exhibition "Watchmaking Art. Watch of the XVI - XVII centuries in the Hermitage", where are presented unique first monuments of watchmaking art created by European masters.

The exposition includes about a hundred items - desktop, wall-mounted, hand-held mechanical watches, as well as their predecessors - the sun, the moon and the star devices for measuring time.

Creating the watch - an area of ​​applied art, which combines the several activities: production of mechanism - the "heart" of the watch and the corresponding case-housing. In the early period of the watch is particularly highly valued, they were made of rare and expensive materials and were designed primarily for heads of state, influential people and the nobility. In Russia, the watch began to be used from the XVI century, later obsolete items have been the object of collecting. Visitors can see a variety in form, technical and artistic solutions products, purchased by Peter I, Elizabeth, Catherine II, as well as representatives of the St. Petersburg nobility.

The appearance of the first mechanical watch was preceded by other time measuring devices: water, sand, sun, star watch. As part of the exhibition: the oldest in Russia sundial works Augsburg master CLIBER (1556); complex astronomical instrument, created in 1584 by other Augsburg master Johann Georg Roll and Reinhold - astronomical clock, with the star and earth globes - a kind of world system in the presentation of its era. A special place is occupied by universal equatorial sundial by makers of "Turning" of Peter I.