| Height | 6 foot ¾ inch (1850 mm) |
| Case | The slender ebony and ebonised pearwood veneered architectural longcase of delicate proportions. The ebony rising hood with very fine moldings to the triangular pediment and drip-moulded cornice, the tympanum mounted with a gilt-brass cartouche. The plain frieze supported by gilt-brass multi-piece Corinthian capitals on three-quarter tapered ebony columns to the front and matching half-columns to the rear, with typical matching gilt-brass rear-screw-fitted swag mounts to the front and sides between the capitals. The hood with inverted acorn finials below the columns, resting on the narrow ebonised trunk with ebony blind-fret shaped apron ‘support’ above the inset rectangular raised panelled trunk door with an eagle-head escutcheon, mounted straight to the trunk sides, that have matching recessed moulded panels. The plain ebonised pearwood-veneered plinth raised on four turned bun feet. |
| Dial | The 8¼ inch (208 mm) square brass dial, with traces of fire-gilding, signed A: Fromanteel Londini fecit along the lower edge, the corners applied with gilt-brass cherub head spandrels. The slender silvered chapter ring with Roman hours and later lozenge half-hours markers with Arabic minutes, every 5, within the divisions. The finely matted centre with calendar aperture above VI, shuttered winding holes, and well-sculpted hands in blued steel. The whole dial held to the movement frontplate by four latched dial feet. |
| Movement | The archetypal slender scooped-top rectangular movement with six finned baluster pillars, latched to the frontplate. The going train with bolt-and-shutter maintaining power for the verge escapement and short bob pendulum. The strike train is governed by a high positioned outside countwheel to the backplate, striking the hours in the early Renaissance manner via the vertically pivoted hammer arbor on the bell above. The whole movement raised on seatboard blocks, the bottom pillars secured onto iron taper pins and held by later screwed hooks. |
| Duration | 8 days |
| Provenance | 27 July 1955, bought by Samuel Messer from Mallet, the invoice endorsed by RW Symonds; Christie’s, The Samuel Messer Collection, 5 December 1991, lot 37 sold to; Private collection UK, until sold by Ben Wright 2014, for £275,000; John C Taylor Collection, inventory no.157 |
| Comparative Literature | Cescinsky, The Old English Master Clockmakers and their Clocks 1670-1820, 1938; Symonds, Masterpieces of English Furniture and Clocks, 1940; Symonds, A Book of English Clocks, 1947; British Clockmaker’s Heritage Exhibition, 1952; ‘Huygens Tercentenary Exhibition’, Antiquarian Horology, September 1956; Lee, The Knibb Family Clockmakers, 1963; Edwardes, The Grandfather Clock, 1974; Tom Robinson, The Longcase Clock, Antique Collectors’ Club 1981; The Noel Terry Collection of Furniture and Clocks, 1987; Dawson, The Iden Clock Collection, 1987; Derek Roberts, British Longcase Clocks, 1990; Horological Masterworks, 2003; Huygens’ Legacy, 2004; Horological Treasures of the Lord Harris Collection, 2017 |
| Literature | Lee, The First Twelve Years of the English Pendulum Clock, Exhibition Catalogue 1969, pl.26; Fabian, ‘Could it have been Wren?’ Antiquarian Horology, Vol.10, No.5, Winter 1977, p.550-570, fig.50; Dawson, Drover & Parkes, Early English Clocks, 1982, p.119, 166, pl.146-47, 219-20; Garnier & Hollis, Innovation & Collaboration, 2018, p.176-177, illus. |
| Escapement | Verge with short bob pendulum |
| Strike Type | Countwheel hour striking |
| Exhibited | 1969, The First Twelve Years of the English Pendulum Clock, loan exhibition at RA Lee, Bruton Place, London, exhibit no.9; 2018, London, Innovation & Collaboration, exhibit no.30 |
Exhibit № 6: The Messer Fromanteel. Circa 1663
A highly important Charles II ebony veneered and ebonised architectural striking verge longcase clock by Ahasuerus Fromanteel, London
Case design attributed to John Webb (1611-1672)
£295,000
This important longcase clock belongs to a very small and exclusive group of early weight-driven pendulum clocks by Ahasuerus Fromanteel, first conceived as wall clocks but contemporaneously updated to the then new-fashioned, long-cased format. These extraordinarily rare clocks demonstrate the rapid transitional period that English clock casemaking was going through in the early 1660s: for a short period, hooded weight-driven pendulum wall clocks were supplied as a more sophisticated continuation of a wall-hung format that would have been familiar to Fromanteel’s customers, and still available, the lantern clock (see exhibit 4). Another example with a similar contemporaneously upgraded ebonised trunk can be found at the Victoria & Albert Museum (accession number W.10:1 to 5-1963). While examples of early pendulum hooded wall clocks of a similar date can be found in The British Clockmakers’ Heritage Exhibition, 1952, No.84 and illustrated on the front cover, Dawson, Drover & Parkes, Early English Clocks, pl.214-215 and Horological Treasures of the Lord Harris Collection, 2017, front cover and p.25. All three of these examples exhibit similar truly architectural hoods with gilt-brass mounts and pendant under-finials.
This ebony hood is of Fromanteel’s earliest truly architectural type, with a properly articulated cornice with drip moulding to the fully-expressed entablature, and a broad stylobate (base) on which the angle columns stand, those at the rear sides being of half-column form, and having multi-piece cast gilt-metal Corinthian capitals, plus pendant ‘acorn’ finials below, otherwise exclusive to Fromanteel’s wall mounted clocks. The veneers are of ebony and there is an apron to the front applied with blind strapwork, a relic of its initial conception as a wall clock. The contemporary trunk is, by contrast, veneered in ebonised pearwood, and has raised panels to the long door and to the recessed sides; there is no front trunk-frame and the door is hung directly on the trunk side timbers. Also in Fromanteel’s earliest fashion, the dial chapter ring was originally intended to be faced in silver, but instead the lead brazing holes were filled with brass and silvered. The movement has comparatively narrow, early pattern scooped-top plates with the great wheels extending beyond the sides. Although the verge escapement is correctly positioned and has a fine typical backcock and potence, intriguingly the backplate has a filled ‘key-hole’ slot below, but this could have been a workshop error, particularly as there are no corresponding backcock fixing holes and its position is planted too low for an escapement. The hour striking is, as expected, governed using a high-positioned outside countwheel via an early, Renaissance-inspired, vertically mounted and pivoted hammer, and throughout the movement are archetypal, Fromanteel workshop, bent-brass cocks with well-shaped feet.
When the brand-new ‘long’ cases were introduced in c.1660-62, the first probably being the Norfolk Fromanteel (also in this collection, inventory no.41), it is apparent that the hooded format also initially continued – but, perhaps for practical as well as aesthetic reasons, they very soon lost popularity and, as with a very small number of other examples, Fromanteel contemporaneously upgraded this clock to the new longcase configuration. Not only did he utilise the complete ebony hood with under-finials, but he also retained the blind-fretted ‘support’ to integrate the design with the ebonised trunk, which would otherwise have had a convex throat moulding, as first developed and found on the Norfolk Fromanteel.
It is interesting to note that these scarce upgraded trunks were veneered in fruitwood, barely indistinguishable from ebony at the time they were finished, but undoubtedly a cost saving for Fromanteel. Arguably they also appear to re-affirm the idea that the workshop was batch-making to meet initial demand for early pendulum clocks in the early 1660s, at a time when Fromanteel did not have royal patronage, but was undoubtedly leading the horological field, and held the commercial upper-hand.
However, he still needed to be cost-conscious and his initial advantage would soon be challenged by his rivals, particularly Edward East, who had essentially ‘caught up’ with his workshop by the mid 1660s. While this clock exemplifies the technical advances that Fromanteel had first introduced in London’s competitive horological world, the rapidity of adopting his mechanical changes meant that, within the decade, the knife-edge verge escapement with short bob pendulum was to be superseded by the long pendulum, first using a cross-beat, to be followed almost immediately by the anchor escapement. The movement pillars, here riveted to the backplate and secured by latches on the front plate, was a format very soon adopted by all English clockmakers. Meanwhile the high-positioned outside countwheel was to be soon brought down the train, and on 8-day clocks mounted direct on the greatwheel. The vertically pivoted hammer arbor, here still in the Renaissance-clock format, was soon to be planted horizontally between the plates. With this dial, Fromanteel initially intended to face the chapter ring in expensive solid silver, and he was still using steady-pins for the spandrels; even the economic use of fire-gilding behind them ceased, possibly because the cost of labour, in marking out and careful application of the gold amalgam, outweighed the cost of a relatively small amount of gold.
Product Description
This important longcase clock belongs to a very small and exclusive group of early weight-driven pendulum clocks by Ahasuerus Fromanteel, first conceived as wall clocks but contemporaneously updated to the then new-fashioned, long-cased format. These extraordinarily rare clocks demonstrate the rapid transitional period that English clock casemaking was going through in the early 1660s: for a short period, hooded weight-driven pendulum wall clocks were supplied as a more sophisticated continuation of a wall-hung format that would have been familiar to Fromanteel’s customers, and still available, the lantern clock (see exhibit 4). Another example with a similar contemporaneously upgraded ebonised trunk can be found at the Victoria & Albert Museum (accession number W.10:1 to 5-1963). While examples of early pendulum hooded wall clocks of a similar date can be found in The British Clockmakers’ Heritage Exhibition, 1952, No.84 and illustrated on the front cover, Dawson, Drover & Parkes, Early English Clocks, pl.214-215 and Horological Treasures of the Lord Harris Collection, 2017, front cover and p.25. All three of these examples exhibit similar truly architectural hoods with gilt-brass mounts and pendant under-finials.
This ebony hood is of Fromanteel’s earliest truly architectural type, with a properly articulated cornice with drip moulding to the fully-expressed entablature, and a broad stylobate (base) on which the angle columns stand, those at the rear sides being of half-column form, and having multi-piece cast gilt-metal Corinthian capitals, plus pendant ‘acorn’ finials below, otherwise exclusive to Fromanteel’s wall mounted clocks. The veneers are of ebony and there is an apron to the front applied with blind strapwork, a relic of its initial conception as a wall clock. The contemporary trunk is, by contrast, veneered in ebonised pearwood, and has raised panels to the long door and to the recessed sides; there is no front trunk-frame and the door is hung directly on the trunk side timbers. Also in Fromanteel’s earliest fashion, the dial chapter ring was originally intended to be faced in silver, but instead the lead brazing holes were filled with brass and silvered. The movement has comparatively narrow, early pattern scooped-top plates with the great wheels extending beyond the sides. Although the verge escapement is correctly positioned and has a fine typical backcock and potence, intriguingly the backplate has a filled ‘key-hole’ slot below, but this could have been a workshop error, particularly as there are no corresponding backcock fixing holes and its position is planted too low for an escapement. The hour striking is, as expected, governed using a high-positioned outside countwheel via an early, Renaissance-inspired, vertically mounted and pivoted hammer, and throughout the movement are archetypal, Fromanteel workshop, bent-brass cocks with well-shaped feet.
When the brand-new ‘long’ cases were introduced in c.1660-62, the first probably being the Norfolk Fromanteel (also in this collection, inventory no.41), it is apparent that the hooded format also initially continued – but, perhaps for practical as well as aesthetic reasons, they very soon lost popularity and, as with a very small number of other examples, Fromanteel contemporaneously upgraded this clock to the new longcase configuration. Not only did he utilise the complete ebony hood with under-finials, but he also retained the blind-fretted ‘support’ to integrate the design with the ebonised trunk, which would otherwise have had a convex throat moulding, as first developed and found on the Norfolk Fromanteel.
It is interesting to note that these scarce upgraded trunks were veneered in fruitwood, barely indistinguishable from ebony at the time they were finished, but undoubtedly a cost saving for Fromanteel. Arguably they also appear to re-affirm the idea that the workshop was batch-making to meet initial demand for early pendulum clocks in the early 1660s, at a time when Fromanteel did not have royal patronage, but was undoubtedly leading the horological field, and held the commercial upper-hand.
However, he still needed to be cost-conscious and his initial advantage would soon be challenged by his rivals, particularly Edward East, who had essentially ‘caught up’ with his workshop by the mid 1660s. While this clock exemplifies the technical advances that Fromanteel had first introduced in London’s competitive horological world, the rapidity of adopting his mechanical changes meant that, within the decade, the knife-edge verge escapement with short bob pendulum was to be superseded by the long pendulum, first using a cross-beat, to be followed almost immediately by the anchor escapement. The movement pillars, here riveted to the backplate and secured by latches on the front plate, was a format very soon adopted by all English clockmakers. Meanwhile the high-positioned outside countwheel was to be soon brought down the train, and on 8-day clocks mounted direct on the greatwheel. The vertically pivoted hammer arbor, here still in the Renaissance-clock format, was soon to be planted horizontally between the plates. With this dial, Fromanteel initially intended to face the chapter ring in expensive solid silver, and he was still using steady-pins for the spandrels; even the economic use of fire-gilding behind them ceased, possibly because the cost of labour, in marking out and careful application of the gold amalgam, outweighed the cost of a relatively small amount of gold.
Additional information
| Dimensions | 5827373 cm |
|---|
