Leviny's Jewellery Shop Wall Clock
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Ernest Leviny, jewellery shop wall clock, Castlemaine, Victoria. Single train English fusee movement in a finely carved Australian cedar and pine case, mid 19th century. 45 cm diameter. Leviny (1818-1905) was born in Hungary and trained as a jeweller, working in Paris, Russia and London until the lure of the Australian gold rush became too hard to resist. Initially only planning to stay for three years Leviny arrived in the Victorian goldfields in 1853 and set up his jewellers business in Castlemaine where he would remain for the rest of his life. Regarded as one of the finest silversmiths on the goldfields his business grew rapidly and it was often remarked that he was the wealthiest man in the district. In the 1860s Leviny built an impressive villa and named it Buda after his beloved Budapest. The house was sold to the Castlemaine Art gallery in 1970 and survives as a museum to this day. Provenance: The Edward Clark collection, Melbourne
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- Victorian Period - The Victorian period of furniture and decorative arts design covers the reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1901. There was not one dominant style of furniture in the Victorian period. Designers used and modified many historical styles such as Gothic, Tudor, Elizabethan, English Rococo, Neoclassical and others, although use of some styles, such as English Rococo and Gothic tended to dominate the furniture manufacture of the period.
The Victorian period was preceded by the Regency and William IV periods, and followed by the Edwardian period, named for Edward VII (1841 ? 1910) who was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions and Emperor of India for the brief period from 1901 until his death in 1910. - Fusee - The fusee movement was used in clocks and pocket watches from the mid 17th century. The fusee is a cone shaped drum within the works that is linked to the barrel of the spring, usually by a length of chain.
As the mainspring loses its tension over time, the cone shaped barrel compensates for this by increasing the tension, by pulling the mainspring tighter, thus ensuring the time remains constant.
Use of the fusee in clocks was superseded by the "going barrel" in the mid 19th century and for pocket watches at the beginning of the 19th century.
The fusee continued to be used in marine chronometers until the 1970s. - Movement - The technical name for the workings of a clock or watch, and does not include the dial or case.
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