Stock No.

Exhibit No.10

Height

34 inches (867 mm)

Case

The Italian Mannerist tabernacle architectural case of ebony onto an oak and pine carcass, the breakfront outset by two tapering columns with gilt-brass multi-piece Corinthian capitals, supporting a broken triangular pediment that flanks a scroll-set faceted semi-circular pediment, fronted by a gilt-brass lambrequin signed Cremstorff A Paris, and topped by a gilt-brass chimney with an urn finial. The flat un-veneered and ebonised back inset with an access door, the front with a rectangular ebony-moulded dial door above the conforming breakfront base, with a hinged-flap door inset with a wooden fret, all standing on a plain ebony-veneered rectangular step-base with four gilt-brass bun feet. The oil lamp slides in from the right side, seated behind the pierced section of the dial, and under the gilt-brass chimney. The movement winding squares located behind the lower rail of the front door (signs of plugged holes) with access eased by the hinged-flap door below.

Dial

The 10¾ by 11 inch (274 by 280 mm) rectangular brass dial with four latched feet, the main plate painted with an Italianate garden scene of a fountain flanked by two statues on plinths, each with an E to their front for Edward East, with figures promenading an avenue of Cypress trees leading up to a hilltop Villa, all set before a mountainous landscape. The upper section painted as a clouded sky with a central arched hour-sector, the static outer with 60 small single-hole minutes, tear-drop half-quarter holes and Roman numeral pierced quarters; the revolving three-layered central hour disc with ‘flag-on-chain’ Arabic numerals, and two diametrically opposed apertures, depicting day on even hours and night on odd hours, each revealing a pierced Arabic hour number and the hour aperture position in relation to the outer arch-sector indicates the minutes past the hour. The paintwork is believed to have been restored by Asprey in the 1980s.

Movement

The 9 by 8 inch (229 by 203 mm) irregular-octagonal movement with eight latched finned baluster pillars planted with two trains, driven by a conventional spring barrel with single fusee for the going train and a directdrive spring barrel for the strike train, both wound from the front. The gut fusee driven going train with knife-edge verge escapement and short bob pendulum; the spring barrel driven strike train governed by an hour countwheel mounted on the front of the barrel and striking the hours on a small ‘pork-pie’ bell mounted between the plates. The central hour disc front-mounted onto an arbor pivoted between the front and back plates above the escapement. The plain backplate signed to the lower centre Edward East, Londini in fine early cursive script.

Duration

2 days

Provenance

Located in ‘North Africa’, and by 1983 with a Parisian antiques dealer;
Asprey, London and advertised in 1987;
Private collection UK, sold by Mark Sampson in 1997, for £79,000;
John C Taylor Collection, inventory no.23

Literature

Cescinsky & Webster, English Domestic Clocks, 1976, p.128, fig.106;
Antiquarian Horology, March 1987, Asprey advert, p.440

Escapement

Knife-edge verge with short bob pendulum