DRESDEN TIME-KEEPING SERVICE.
As clockmakers, they also worked alongside the inspectors of the Mathematics and Physics Salon who established a time-keeping service in the Dresden Zwinger in the late 18th century. There, a transit telescope was deployed to measure the position of the sun on a daily basis, making it possible to determine the exact local time with which the tower clock and later the railway station clocks in Dresden were synchronised.
In 1842, Johann Christian Friedrich Gutkaes was appointed Court Clockmaker. He was already well-known far beyond the borders of Saxony for the fine and extremely precise pocket chronometers that he crafted in his workshop for astronomical clocks. He also built the world-famous Five-Minute Clock for the Semper Opera House in Dresden shortly before his nomination to Court Clockmaker.
He owed his ability to construct exceptional instruments like these to his comprehensive horological knowledge that among Court Clock-makers was handed down from one generation to the next. It was a great honour for Ferdinand A. Lange to be accepted as an apprentice under Gutkaes’ wing.
