A rare South Netherlandish gilt brass skeleton table regulator with calendar, J.G. Aerts, first quarter 19th century

8-cm enamel chapter ring with Roman numerals and skeletonized centre, Breguet hands, subsidiaries for date and month above, spring driven movement converted from a lever escapement with plain balance with concave sides and ruby endstones to deadbeat escapement with steel suspended sunburst pendulum, high-count wheeltrain with eight-spoke wheels, lyre shaped gilt brass frame surmounted by the regulation dial, signed on the base Echappement Libre inventé et exècuté par J.G. Aerts de Tongres, mounted on an oval black marble plinth

Jean-Guillaume (Jan Willem) Aerts (1786 - 1864) was born in Antwerp and lived in Tongres. He supposedly worked in the workshop of the famous Hubert Sarton in Liège. He is regarded as one of the best fine clockmakers of Belgium. Several clocks are known among which Skeleton clocks in the Lehv-collection in New York and the Museum of Longueville. Eddy Fraiture, Uurwerkmakers en Uurwerknijverheid in Vlaanderen, 2002, pp. 167-168.