Early Vidie Aneroid by E.J. Dent Added to the Collection
An exceptionally early Vidie aneroid, dating to around 1850 and retailed by the celebrated London clockmaker Edward John Dent, has been added to the collection together with an expanded history of Dent’s remarkable life and career.
A rare Early Commercial Vidie Aneroid, serial number 4264, dating to approximately 1850, has been added to the collection.
The instrument belongs to the first generation of successful aneroid barometers developed from the invention of the French engineer Lucien Vidie. It was sold in England by the renowned clockmaker and chronometer maker Edward John Dent, whose name is engraved on the dial as E.J. Dent, Paris. Dent played an important role in introducing and popularising Vidie’s new type of portable non-mercurial barometer in Britain from the late 1840s.
The barometer retains many characteristic features of the earliest commercial Vidie instruments, including its spun brass drum-shaped case, finely ornamented bezel, silvered dial, arcuate mercury thermometer, external coil-spring mechanism, and original fitted carrying box.
Alongside the instrument, the website has also been expanded with a detailed history of Edward John Dent, tracing his extraordinary career from precision watchmaking and marine chronometers to scientific instruments and major public commissions. Dent became one of the most important British horologists of the nineteenth century, and his work was closely associated with some of the most ambitious technological projects of Victorian Britain.