Description
The Hönes 160 cuckoo clock features an animated clock peddler and chimney sweep. On every half hour and every hour, the two figures move while the cuckoo comes out of its door and sings.
Movement and operation
Made by Hönes, a manufacturer based in Titisee-Neustadt in the Black Forest, this model has a mechanical 1-day Regula movement, driven by two pine cone-shaped weights. It is wound daily by pulling the chains. The call is produced by two small bellows, with no melody or music box.
This cuckoo clock calls once on the half hour, then strikes the number of hours on the hour. A lever allows the night shut-off to be operated manually. The wooden pendulum swings on the front.
Thanks to the rack strike mechanism, the hands can be turned in both directions without damaging the movement.
An animated chalet in the Black Forest
The chalet evokes a traditional house of the Black Forest, with a roof covered in red shingles laid one by one, an openwork balcony, red shutters and flower boxes.
Two fir trees frame the scene. On the left, a doe grazes with her fawn close beside her. In the centre, a chopping block and its axe recall the chore of chopping wood, and on the right, the peddler walks past a flowered fence.
At each strike, the peddler raises his umbrella, the chimney sweep comes out of the chimney and then goes back down, while the cuckoo appears and nods its head.
A scene steeped in history
The clock peddler recalls the Uhrenträger, the merchants who sold Black Forest clocks across Europe from the 18th century onwards. The chimney sweep is a traditional good-luck charm in Germany
