European clocks at the Frick Collection.(The Art of the Timekeeper. Masterpieces from the Winthrop Edey Bequest, exhibition)(Brief Article)

The scholar-collector is a rare bird, but when well-honed connoisseurship skills, a thorough understanding of the history of design, and great financial resources are combined in a single individual, a remarkable collection can be assembled. Such is the case with the horological expert and collector Winthrop Kellogg Edey, who made his first notation in his "Clock Book" at the age of twelve. By that time he owned seventeen clocks and four watches. At his death in 1999 Edey bequeathed his collection of twenty-five clocks, fourteen watches, and an extensive horological library to the Frick Collection in New York City. From this the museum has selected thirteen clocks and eight watches for an exhibition entitled The Art of the Timekeeper. Masterpieces from the Winthrop Edey Bequest, which is on view through February 24,2002. The guest curator for the show is William J. H. Andrewes, formerly a curator at Harvard University.

Edey's family made a fortune building oil refineries, yet he lived a frugal life in NewYork City in a nineteenth-century town house that he kept in original condition. His substantial resources were devoted to the purchase of important clocks as they became available. An astute collector, he frequently traded up for pieces that were more important. Edey was drawn to examples that illustrated technological and ...