Joseph Knibb, London circa 1670-5

16½ inches

Architectural case, ebony veneered on oak, with lift-off architectural pediment over a pierced-wood fret frieze with three-quarter corinthian columns above the reverse-breakfront base with central drawer. The veneered flat back with inset door with later raised moulding framing the glazed aperture. The glass with Wetherfield Collection label No. 120.

6¼ by 7⅛ inch rectangular gilt-brass dial with four latched dial feet, very fine all-over matting with a narrow plain border. The silvered brass chapter-ring with trident half-hour divisions and Arabic numerals set within the minute ring, sculpted blued-steel hands, signed to the bottom edge

5½ by 6¾ inch plates with four latched baluster pillars, going train with knife-edge verge escapement with brass bob pendulum, the strike train governed by an engraved outside countwheel striking on the pork-pie bell above. The plain backplate with line border signed in an arc Joseph Knibb London, the numbered countwheel engraved with a central rose.

8 day.

Wetherfield collection, sale cat. no.120.

Private collection, UK.

Gardiner Houlgate, 24 Feb 2006, lot 610 (£49,402).

WE Hurcomb, The Wetherfield Collection of 222 Clocks, London, 1928, p.67.

Dawson, Drover & Parkes, Early English Clocks, Woodbridge, 1982, p.174-5, pl.236-7, p.332, 326, pl. 473-4.

Garnier & Carter, The Golden Age of English Horology, 2015, p.348-349.

Knife-edge verge.