The town of Ploiesti is located 60 kilometers from
\nBucharest. One of the town’s most beautiful buildings plays host to the
\nNicolae Simache Clock Museum. We paid a visit to that little precious area,
\nunder the guidance of the curator of the museum, Carmen Banu. <\/p>\n
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We’re in the ‘Nicolae Simache’ Clock
\nMuseum of Ploiesti, a museum founded in 1963, thanks to Emeritus History
\nprofessor Nicolae Simache, who, in his capacity as director of then the
\nPloiesti Regional History Museum, created 18 museum sections, among which the
\nClock Museum, which, of the string of those cultural institutions, seems to have
\nbeen closest to his heart. It is an architectural gem, it is a building erected
\nin the late 19th century, for then the prefect of Prahova county, Luca
\nElefterescu, a conservative politician and the very head of the Conservative
\nParty of that time, a magistrate but also a businessman in the oil industry.
\nIt is one of the most beautiful houses in the southern area of the town, at
\nthat time the residential area of Ploiesti, built in the neo-Romantic style..<\/p>\n
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Carmen Banu about the collection of the museum and its beginnings:<\/p>\n
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The Clock Museum in Ploiesti has an
<\/p>\n Carmen Banu about the exhibits displayed the museum’s first hall:<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n As a novelty, in this hall, returning
<\/p>\n Curator Carmen Banu also showed us around the museum and took us to the big clocks’ hall. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n The second hall plays host to the clocks
<\/p>\n The third hall has pocket watches on display, that
<\/p>\n Carmen Banu: <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n The jewel pocket watches on display in
<\/p>\n We’re taking the final round of our tour, getting our kicks out of seeing the popular clocks on display. This time, Carmen Banu is introducing the popular clocks to us.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
The mantelpiece clocks are well
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The Clock Museum<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":139,"featured_media":163267,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[44685],"tags":[45065,45067,45066],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-163266","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-of-culture","tag-parlour-pendulum","tag-pocket-watch","tag-wall-clock"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
\nextremely precious collection. Pieces have been purchased beginning 1954. In
\n1955, the first wall clocks were purchased, the so-called Transylvanian clocks,
\nwhich later turned out to have been manufactured in Germany, yet they were
\navailable in houses around Transylvania. The collection was enriched when a
\nbatch of 55 clocks was purchased, part of the collection of the famous
\nclockmaker from Bucharest, Sebastian Sa\u0219a. Hence the idea of founding the Clock
\nMuseum of Ploiesti. A lot of purchases have been made and today the collection
\nboasts around 4,000 pieces, with 500 of them being exhibited in the temporary
\nexhibition, they are of course the most representative pieces of the collection. Time
\nmeasurement evolution is being illustrated, from the solar dials, sandglasses,
\nwater clocks, to wristwatches manufactured in the first half of the 20th
\ncentury. Our collection has exceptional clocks, such as clocks manufactured in
\nthe Renaissance style, in the mid -16th century, in France and
\nGermany, respectively. The oldest of them is a clock manufactured in Blois, in
\n1544, by Jakob Acustodia, an horologer of those times. It is one of the pieces de<\/em> resistance, <\/em>maybe the most important piece in our collection.
\nAnother extremely valuable piece is the clock manufactured in 1562 by Jeremias
\nMetzker, a famous horologer from Germany, it is a limited-series clock as three
\nof them made by Jeremias Metzker are known around the world, the one which is
\npart of the Clock Museum collection seems to be the oldest in this series.<\/p>\n
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\nto the first time measuring tools, we have a water clock. It appears no such
\nclock can be found in similar collections. Torch clocks were first manufactured in England, in the 17th century and because they were very successful,
\nthey were manufactured until the 19th century. Our collection has
\ntwo such clocks as well, their name is derived from the semblance with the
\ntorches of that time.<\/p>\n
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\nof the 18th and the early 19th century. Here,
\nattention-grabbing thanks to their dimensions, but also thanks to their beauty,
\nare, of course, the parlor pendulums of the 18th century. By all
\nmeans, drawing our attention in this area are the pocket watches, the collection’s
\noldest, manufactured from the late 17th century until the early 19th
\ncentury – watches made by English, French, Swiss clockmakers. The Clock Museum
\nHeritage is also comparable to the heritage of museums in Germany, Switzerland,
\nthe United States. The famous clockmaker Abraham Louis Breguet manufactured
\nwatches especially for Turkey and in the Topkapi museum some of his works are
\non display as well. He is arguably the most famous clockmaker of all time and
\nour collection also boasts clocks made by Breguet. <\/p>\n
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\nwere property of historical personalities. <\/p>\n
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\nthe third hall are watches manufactured in the 19th and the 20th
\ncenturies, which, apart from their technical qualities, do have special artistic
\nqualities, through the minuteness of the decorative patterns, there are also
\nwatches that belonged to several personalities of Romania’s cultural and
\npolitical life. I should like to start with King Carol I watches, we have
\ntwo watches that were part of his collection. In our collection we can also
\nfind gift watches, among them, a watch offered as a gift by a Romanian woman
\nwho settled in Switzerland, it is a watch that had been property of Tsar
\nAlexander the 2nd and in 1922 the lady offered the watch as a gift
\nto the Clock Museum in Ploiesti. As for the wrist watches, we have diplomat
\nNicolae Titulescu’s watch on display, it is a watch made by LeCoultre Manufacturers
\nin 1931, we’re speaking about the famous Reverso model created by that firm.
\nThere are also other watches, extremely beautiful, part of the same series,
\nthere are curiosity watches, watches enchased in a pince-nez, there’s also a
\nwatch with masonic insignia.<\/p>\n
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\nrepresented in the collection, these are mainly French-made clocks, their
\ndecorative patterns are inspired from the periods when they were created, with
\nthe gilded bronze as the main material. We’re now moving on to another category
\nof clocks of a popular nature, the wall clocks, those were clocks mainly
\nmanufactured in Germany, in the Black Forest area, and pride of place hold the
\ncuckoo clocks. Apart from the pocket watches that used to be property of
\nremarkable personalities, the museum’s collection also has clocks that belonged
\nto several Romanian authorities, table clocks, wall clocks, and I should like
\nto open this series with the watch that belonged to ruling prince Alexandru
\nIoan Cuza – a watch with an astronomical mechanism, which displayed calendar
\ndata, solstice and equinox days, the leap years. Added to that are the watches that
\nbelonged to the political personality of Mihail Kog\u0103lniceanu, to writer Duiliu
\nZamfirescu, painter Theodor Aman, poet George Co\u0219buc – it is at least these
\nnames that are worth drawing visitors so that they can see for themselves those
\nspecial objects. At the time of the pandemic, we’re awaiting out visitors in a
\nsafe and beautiful area, in an area which is unique in its kind.<\/p>\n
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