Exhibit № 8: John Wise, Warwick. Circa 1665

8¾ inches (222 mm)

The case of early box form with sycamore veneers and a solid pearwood box carcass with dovetailed corners, surmounted by a carrying handle of unusual tulip-sculpted and tear-drop centred design. The glazed front door lap-jointed and mitre-veneered in sycamore with a solid-pearwood mitred mask behind, and with a solid back door (with signs of earlier hinges). It is conceivable that the case was dual-purpose, to be alternatively hung on the wall, as the early Coster and Fromanteel box clocks. The surfaces have been stained to a walnut colour and it was possibly originally ebonised. The whole case stands on brass corner squares, with squat bun feet below.

The 6½ inch (165 mm) square gilt-brass dial with finely engraved tulip corners within an outer frame line, interrupted by the signature John Wise along the lower edge. The silvered brass chapter ring with quarter division ring and Roman hours with fleur-de-lys half-hour marks between. The finely matted centre with winding hole below XII and a well-sculpted counterpoised blued steel hour hand. The dial held to the movement by three pinned dial feet, and into the case by two bent-brass brackets.

The slightly tapered movement with tall slender plates, held by two further horizontal plates top-and-bottom, riveted to the back and slotted to the front and pin-fixed. Planted with an off-set spring barrel and central chain fusee, with separate hand arbor driven by indirect gearing to the backplate, and governed by a knife-edge verge and crown-wheel escapement with short bob pendulum. The backplate with two high-positioned banking pins, to limit the pendulum, and a holdfast below, with corresponding bevelled backplate corner in which to park the bob.

2 days

1980s-90s, The Time Museum, Rockford, Illinois, USA;

The Time Museum Collection, Rockford, Illinois, USA, inventory no.3762, until sold;

Sotheby’s New York, 19 June 2002, lot 162 for $10,157;

John C Taylor Collection, inventory no.91

Horological Dialogues, vol.2, American section of the Antiquarian Horological Society, New York 1986, pages 68-69;

Horological Masterworks, Oxford, 2003, p.82-83

Knife-edge verge with short bob pendulum

1986, New York, American Section of the Antiquarian Horological Society, Tenth Anniversary Exhibition, exhibit no.24;

2003, Horological Masterworks, Oxford Museum for the History of Science and the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, exhibit no.18