Clocks

The Spanish monarchs always showed interest in timekeeping, especially from Charles V and Philip II onwards, when the interest in these mechanical and scientific objects grew. Philip II brought several clocks to the Alcazar of Madrid, one of which, in the form of a candlestick, was made in Madrid in 1583 by the Brussels craftsman Hans de Evalo, and is the oldest work in the collection.

The kings of the House of Austria increased the collection, mainly with clocks from Germany, but almost all of them were lost in the fire of the Alcazar. Philip V, the first monarch of the Bourbon dynasty, showed a great interest in these objects from his arrival in Spain, showing preference for those of English manufacture and origin.

His son Ferdinand VI was more interested in small collector's clocks. Even so, he surrounded himself with magnificent English clocks built by John Ellicott and George Graham, while at the same time promoting the training of Spanish clockmakers by sending them to perfect their studies abroad. During his reign, the first automated Swiss clocks arrived in Spain, gadgets that delighted his final days, such as the one known as El Pastor made by Pierre Jaquet-Droz.

His brother Charles III tried to establish a school of clockmakers at court. He promoted and supported the Charost brothers, French clockmakers, in opening a school and factory in Madrid that would perfect the technique learned by the Spanish. The aim was to manufacture machines that could compete with French industry and reduce costs in an increasingly crowded field.

Charles IV was fascinated by clockwork mechanisms from his youth, and even had his own workshop in the palace, where he created and repaired machinery. The King and his wife Maria Luisa of Parma invested large sums of money in acquiring an important set destined to decorate the New Palace in Madrid and their leisure residences, especially the Royal House of El Labrador in Aranjuez. Although the monarch had several commercial agents, his most important and well known supplier was French haberdashery trader François Louis Godon, who was employed to find works to enrich the decoration of the palaces and royal residences. This is the case of the two large marble and bronze clocks that currently decorate the Throne Room of the Madrid palace and the clock known as La Péndola de El Tiempo, in the Gasparini antechamber of the same palace. It was also in this reign that the best Spanish clocks were made by Manuel Gutiérrez, Manuel de Rivas, Antonio Molina and Salvador López.

After the War of Independence, Ferdinand VII found the palaces had been looted during the Napoleonic invasion. He therefore requested inventories of all the objects that had been left in the royal properties and began to buy mainly French clocks. The French school was at its peak and the clock cases displayed themes inspired by antiquity and classical literature that helped to enhance the image of the monarch. His successors, Isabella II, Alfonso XII and Alfonso XIII, added new clocks in accordance with the prevailing fashions in the second half of the nineteenth century and first decade of the twentieth century.