This Early Black Forest Shield Automaton is known as a “Schnappuhr”. In this clock the eyes move with the pendulum, and the mouth “bites” with each strike to the bell. It was made c. 1820.
This clock was acquired through a lead that was provided to us by a collector friend. It had been in the same family since the 1930′s and hung in their home in the Pacific North West region of the United States, until it was purchased for our museum.
The Schnappuhr is one of the most desirable of the shield automata, and very difficult to find.
The man on the Schnappuhr, I think, is wearing “yellow breeches”. Or are yellow breeches just down to the knee? Anyhow, yellow breeches was a fashion in the 1700s and 1800s. There is a stream in Pennsylvania near Carlisle named Yellow Breeches Creek. It is a famous trout stream. The poem, The Humblebee by Ralph Waldo Emerson calls the bumblebee a “yellow-breeched philosopher”, I suppose in reference to the back legs loaded with yellow pollen. I saw a BF clock online somewhere with artwork in the arched top of the shield showing a guy with yellow pants and a blue coat. I just thought that you might like to know this trivia.