Introduction of Restoration Project of Table Clock with Musical Mechanism. James Cox workshop

28 July 2009, in the Pavilion Hall of the Small Hermitage presentation of restoration project of table clock with musical mechanism carried out with the assistance of Samsung Electronics Company took place. The table clock with musical mechanism was made in the workshop of the most famous English master James Cox who was specializing in complicated richly decorated automatic clock for eastern, mainly Chinese market. There is a famous Peacock clock in the collection of the State Hermitage.

Table clock from gilded bronze and agate was made in 1760 - 1790s. There is a lion standing on the pedestal in form of agate box decorated with netting from gilded bronze. The lion has a pavilion on its back. The roof of the pavilion is crowned with a figure of a rhinoceros that is supporting the clock drum decorated with pastes. There are two kneeling black men with baskets on their heads on top of the box cover. On the corners there are bronze vases with bouquets made from coloured glass. The legs of the box rest upon the backs of small bulls.

There is musical mechanism hidden inside the box. It plays six melodies on nine bells. There is a signature on the dial plate - Jas. Cox/London. The clock got to the Hermitage in 1949.

Clock and musical mechanisms required restoration. A number of decorative elements was missing - bouquets in the corner and upper vases, a star on the dial plate, a star with rotating rays inside the pavilion as well as winding keys. Rotation mechanism of corner bouquets was not functioning.

Mechanism restoration and complete recreation of loses were accomplished in the Laboratory for Scientific Restoration of Clocks and Musical Mechanisms (the head of the laboratory is Mikhail Guriev) of the State Hermitage.

As a result of restoration works the Hermitage has the first operating copy of such clock in Russia.

Mr. Suk Il Lim, the head of Samsung Electronics office in St Petersburg, attended the presentation ceremony of the restoration project of table clock.

Hermitage - Samsung Projects in 2008 - 2009:

1. The Agreement on donation from the company for the purchase of monitors to be installed at the Youth Educational Centre and Computer classroom of the School Centre of the State Hermitage was concluded
2. As a part of cooperation five multimedia kiosks (in the Menshikov palace and in the rooms of permanent exhibition of Japanese Art in the Winter Palace) were installed; fourteen monitors, new plasma-panel displays for multimedia complexes for temporary exhibitions and information block of the Main entrance were granted.
3. Old plasma screens were replaced by new ones (for information board at the Main entrance, at ticket windows of excursion office, and on multimedia stands for temporary exhibitions support).

At the Pavilion Hall in the Small Hermitage

Table clock from gilded bronze and agate with musical mechanism. Workshop of James Cox

Mikhail Piotrovsky, Director of the State Hermitage

Mr. Suk Il Lim, Ķead of Samsung Electronics office in St Petersburg