Lectures

On the Clock! The Discovery and Conservation of "The Rooster's Crow" Automaton Clock

Wednesday, May 6

5:30 – 6:30 PM

Ticket Details

Free with General Admission

American Sign Language (ASL) Available

Location

Lecture Hall

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Free with Registration

Tri-County Residents get in free with ID

Join Menno Hoencamp, a clock specialist, conservator, and director of the Dutch gallery, Mentink & Roest, which has earned an international reputation for rare and exceptional antique clocks. Together with the DIA’s Dr. Chassica Kirchhoff, he will share the story of the discovery and conservation of “The Rooster’s Crow” Automaton Clock, along with new clues about its origins and history.

Acquired in 2023, “The Rooster’s Crow” is the DIA’s first timepiece made before 1600 and one of only a few working Renaissance automata (or mechanical, moving figures) in North American museum collections. The clock’s lively rooster and regal princes bring movement and sound to the DIA’s Medieval and Renaissance Galleries, where it embodies the artistry, engineering, and innovation of 16th-century clockmaking.

Image: “The Rooster’s Crow” Automaton Clock, present-day Germany (Augsburg or Nuremberg), ca. 1585, gilt copper, brass, engraved silver, steel with partial bluing. Museum purchase, Ernest Rosemarie Kanzler Foundation Fund, DIA. No. 2023.601.

On the Clock! The Discovery and Conservation of "The Rooster's Crow" Automaton Clock

Wednesday, May 6

5:30 – 6:30 PM

Ticket Details

Free with General Admission

Free with Registration

Tri-County Residents get in free with ID

American Sign Language (ASL) Available

Location

Lecture Hall

See on Map Hide Map

Tags

Auxiliary Groups Lectures Free Adults Evening

Speaker

Menno Hoencamp

Menno Hoencamp was intrigued by clocks from a very early age. He particularly enjoyed taking clocks apart with his grandfather, who was an engineer, to find out how they worked. He decided to make a career of his passion. After studying to become a precision mechanic and instrument maker in Leiden, The Netherlands, Hoencamp completed his degree at the famous West Dean College in England, where he trained to restore clocks, watches, barometers and scientific instruments to the highest level imaginable. After graduating, Menno Hoencamp went to London to work for David Newell Clocks, where he spent four years restoring rare and exclusive clocks for private customers, auction houses, the National Trust and the Wallace Collection.

On his return to the Netherlands, Menno set up his own restoration business, working in association with Mentink & Roest. In 2008, he took over the day-to-day running from the founders, thereby safeguarding the continuity. Mentink & Roest moved to a monumental manor house in the village of Ingen in the Betuwe.

As well as being a passionate restorer, Menno Hoencamp is also a certified valuer (and Registered Valuer) of antique timepieces.

Dr. Chaz Kirchhoff

Dr. Chassica (Chaz) Kirchhoff is associate curator of European Sculpture and Decorative Arts at the DIA, where her curatorial area encompasses sculpture and decorative arts in all media from antiquity until the 19th century. Her background as a metalworker informs her curatorial practice and scholarly research, which focuses on the histories and meanings of armor in medieval and Renaissance Europe.

Dr. Kirchhoff earned a Ph.D. in Art History from the University of Kansas. She held various positions at the Spencer Museum of Art and a prestigious Mellon postdoctoral fellowship in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Department of Arms and Armor.

Dr. Kirchhoff is the author of The Thun-Hohenstein Album: Cultures of Remembrance in a Paper Armory and the curator of the DIA’s ongoing Guests of Honor installation, Armor as Fashion, on view until April 25, 2027. She has published and lectured extensively on the visual languages of objects and stories of their makers, and she is the first internationally recognized expert in European arms and armor to join the DIA’s curatorial team.