Plate of the "Chronometrum mirabile Leodiense".

Engr., 37 x 48,5 cm, old hand-coloured (underlaid).

Rare and lavishly coloured depiction of a timepiece from Thomas Hildeyard's treatise "Descriptio horologii recens inventi [...]" (1st Fr. ed.: 1726). Th. Hildeyard (1690-1746), a professor of philosophy at Liège with remarkable scientific abilities, was renowned for one of the finest specimens of 18th-c. horology. The clock today forms part of the Spanish royal collections in Madrid.
Ref. Ghent University Library. - Dictionary of National Biography 26/385. - Centro Virtual Cervantes. - Hilton, M.; Shefrin, J. - Educating the Child in Enlightenment Britain: Beliefs, Cultures, Practices (Ashgate 2009), pp. 138-139.