Exhibit № 13: Edward Fowll, London. Circa 1671

6 foot 4 inches (1930 mm)

The architectural case veneered in ebonised pearwood onto a pine carcass. The rising hood with gable-end pediment, above the cornice and frieze with central gilt-brass draped swag mount, all supported by Solomonic columns with integral ebonised capitals and bases, flanking the dial aperture, and matching quarter columns behind the glazed sides. The hood resting on a convex throat moulding, above the ebonised trunk door with three raised panels and a circular glazed pendulum lenticle, with surface mounted frame-mouldings and extending to the full width of the trunk. The cavetto/ovolo base mouldings above the plain rectangular plinth, standing on four ebonised bun feet.

The 9 inch (228 mm) square brass dial with winged cherub head spandrels to the corners, the narrow silvered brass chapter ring, with Roman hours and fleur-de-lys half-hour markers between, and unusually small Arabic five-minute numbers within the division ring, with early pierced and shaped hands in blued steel. The matted centre with shuttered winding holes and chamfered date and alarm setting apertures, both set or adjusted using pin holes, the silvered Arabic seconds ring below XII, signed within Eduardus Fowll Londini Fecit on a polished reserve. The dial held by four feet, latched to the movement frontplate.

The substantial movement plates have six knopped and finned pillars, all latched on the front plate, and planted with two four-wheel trains; the going with anchor escapement set fairly low in the plates, the bolt-and-shutter maintaining power with an unusually long bolt working on the underside of the centre wheel via a shepherd’s crook lever below the dial; the strike train governed by an inside countwheel mounted on the great wheel, which is an early example of this feature, the fly is outside the plates and runs under a bridge screwed to the backplate. The crownwheel rope-driven alarm mechanism is mounted on a separate plate, screwed to the two upper pillars on the right (III) side of the plates.

8 days

Wolley & Wallis, 14 October 1981, lot 376;

Sotheby’s, 24 May 2000, lot 239 for £93,500;

John C Taylor Collection, inventory no.36

Collector’s Pieces Clocks And Watches, 1964, exhibition catalogue, p.6;

Horological Masterworks, 2003, p.98-101;

Garnier & Hollis, Innovation & Collaboration, 2018, p.248

Anchor with one-second pendulum

Inside countwheel hour strike with alarm

1964, Science Museum, Collector’s Pieces Clocks And Watches, AHS Tenth Anniversary Exhibition, exhibit no.5;

2003, Horological Masterworks, Oxford Museum for the History of Science and the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, exhibit no.22

2018, London, Innovation & Collaboration, exhibit no.64