Laboratory for Scientific Restoration of Clocks, Watches and Musical Mechanisms

Laboratory director Mikhail P. Guryev
Telephone/Fax: (812) 571-83-65
E-mail: clocklab@hermitage.ru

The Laboratory for Scientific Restoration of Clocks, Watches and Musical Mechanisms was created in the autumn of 1994 and was the first restoration subdivision of its kind in Russia. The basic tasks of the laboratory are study, restoration and maintenance of the museum's collection of watches, clocks and musical mechanisms, of which there are about 3,000 separate items in the inventory.

Today there are 10 people employed in the laboratory. Among them are professional watchmakers as well as professionals from other specialties, but all have in common a love for time pieces, pride in their work and the certainty that they are needed.

The laboratory staff collect and study information regarding the stylistic and design features of watches and clocks from different countries and historical ages. They develop methodologies for restoring time pieces and musical mechanisms. For example, they have created an original technology for deciphering melodies recorded on musical cylinders.

Besides preliminary study of an object, restorers spend a great deal of time calculating, designing and preparing lost or missing components of the mechanisms and frames. Time pieces and musical mechanisms are high-technology goods which are created by specialists in a number of different professions: watchmakers, workers in bronze, cabinet-makers, musicians, specialists in enamels, jewellers, etc. Therefore a multi-faceted restoration which tries to provide a complete and scientifically grounded reproduction of the original may require the participation of many different craftsmen coming from related professions.

At present a great deal of attention is devoted to large-size clocks (desk, wall and grandfather's clocks) that are put on permanent display in the museum and also shown in temporary exhibitions. It is assumed that these clocks, as a rule, will function and fill the museum rooms with their chimes.

The laboratory restorers actively cooperate with their colleagues around Russia and abroad. They provide consultations to the museum workers of St Petersburg and Russia.

Restoration programmes:

The Cupid and Psyche clock
Pavilion hall in the Small Hermitage
Larger view

Winding the mechanism of the Peacock clock
Larger view

Deciphering a music drum
Larger view

Photographing a clock mechanism
Larger view