The Clock Gallery, The Forbidden City, Beijing

The Clock Gallery is situated in a very large, beautiful building on the eastern side of the Forbidden City. I like clocks, but was totally unprepared for the number and variety of clocks in the collection, or the beauty of all of them.

   

   

Most of the clocks were made in Europe, and a large number were made in England in the 17th century. Animals figure largely in the clocks, especially elephants. Elephants seemed to be the theme for me on this holiday, everywhere we went we saw elephants, but they are amazing animals so it was lovely to see them everywhere.

       

We spent a long time looking at, and taking photos of the clocks, but most of the photos in this blog were taken through glass, so may not be the best quality. We did notice that all the clocks were dusty, which is a great pity, but the dust did not detract from the beauty of them.

The top four parts of the roof on this one all moved up and down like a telescope

The three photos above were all part of a display of automated clocks, they all did something novel, with moving parts etc. Lovely to see.

 

Elephant feet.. 

Phoenix and Tiger on this one.

       

Elephants

       

       

Finally the largest clock we saw…