Peter Plaßmeyer Books

To mark the occasion of the 200th birthday of Ferdinand Adolph Lange, the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden are organizing an exhibition that will trace the history of making precision timepieces in Saxony. The amateur Johann Heinrich Seyffert, the future master horologist Johann Christian Friedrich Gutkaes and the successful watch manufacturer Ferdinand Adolph Lange represent this development from the first precision watches to the high-quality serial production of pocket watches. Decisive technical innovations can be traced back to Paris and London, the watchmaking centers of the 18th and early 19th centuries, while the French-speaking western part of Switzerland perfected a production system based on a division of labor. Lange successfully carried out these standards of international watchmaking in the Saxon town of Glashütte, and his acclaim is also indebted to the existence of the Mathematisch- Physikalischer Salon. As a site used for observing astronomy, the Salon was dependent on the accuracy of time measurement and served as an authoritative interface in which scientific needs and technical skills were bound together.

In 1728, Augustus II the Strong erected the "Royal Cabinet of Mathematical and Physical Instruments" in the Royal Palace at the Zwinger in Dresden as an independent museum that collected tools and scientific instruments for calculating the altitude of stars or the next solar eclipse, or for aligning cannons. Until today, the Salon houses numerous showpieces from the world-famous collection. It includes terrestrial and celestial globes, fascinating optical, astronomical, and geodesic devices, and historical aids for calculating, drawing, and measuring. The new museum guide takes readers and/or visitors through the large exhibition, which reopened in 2013, documents the sovereigns' passion for collecting, and shows laypeople and specialists the foundations on which our world of today is based.