Having time is, of course, a luxury. But having a luxury time piece seems just straight up practical. Be it bezels of diamonds, fancy (and fanciful) watch bands, giant sundials to grace your magnificent gardens, old-time alarm clocks, or astronomical clocks to get your Mercury Retrogrades right (we think), these time pieces are works of both art and necessity. All to measure that thing of which we can never have enough.
Down with the iPhone "clock" function, which makes my eyes hurt, and long live the watch!
1. 1886 Victorian Lancaster Pocket Watch Camera, via watchismo.blogspot.com
2. Vintage Cartier 1930 Art Deco Clock, via veniceclayartists.com
3. "Part time" by ubiquity_zh, via Flickr
4. Alarm clock from Armenia (Soviet Union period). Made in Erevan Factory. 1950-?, via Etsy
5. Midnight Planétarium timepiece: an astronomical watch that shows the movements of the planets, via Van Cleef & Arpels
6. Zodiac clock in Padua, Italy, via Pinterest
7. A diamond watch brooch of scroll design, set throughout with single-cut diamonds; dial signed Bucherer, via Bonhams
8. The clock window at Musee d'Orsay in Paris, via Travel & Leisure
9. Stahel Zurich Art Deco gold & enamel pendant watch, circa 1920s, via Live Auctioneers
10. Astronomical clock in Prague, CZ by Dennis Barloga
11. Tall-case clock, New England, ca. 1830. Decoration attributed to George Robert Lawton Sr. (1813–1885). Scituate, Providence County, R.I., ca. 1883. Via curatedobject.us
12. A Nürnberg diptych sundial from the 1600s from Tucher Thomas (1590-1645), capable of operating between 42 and 54 degrees of latitude. The brass insert is a mystery: possibly an annalematic sundial to allow orientation without compass. Currently in Louvre. Via L'Agence Photo
13. Narivalaya Yantra (sundial) at the Jantar Mantar Observatory, Jaipur, 1727-34, via architecture of doom
14. The Corpus Clock in Cambridgeshire, England, via Cambridge Images
15. A rare art deco onyx and diamond "Montre Bague Navette" keyless ring watch, by Cartier, circa 1920, via Bonhams
16. 16th Century astronomical clock in Ulm, Germany, via xda-developers.com
17. Vintage 14kt gold lipstick case, with a watch on the top, via Skinner
18. A fine pink gold letter-form purse watch circa 1943 by Cartier, via Sotheby's