+44 (0) 1962 844443|info@cartermarsh.com

Exhibit № 42. The Teiger Shelton, Dated 1736

Exhibit № 42. The Teiger Shelton, Dated 1736

A fine George II month-going walnut longcase regulator with equation of time by John Shelton, London, internally dated 1736

£95,000


Height

8 feet 4½ inches (2553 mm)

Case

The oak carcass veneered in figured and burr walnut, the breakarch hood with pierced-wood frieze fret and brass capped angle columns, concave throat moulding, arched trunk door and plinth with raised rectangular panel, standing on double skirted foot.

Dial

The arched dial of Graham influence, signed John Shelton, LONDON on a sector-shaped reserve in the finely matted centre additionally with a calendar aperture within the subsidiary seconds ring above VI, silvered Roman and Arabic plain chapter ring without half-hour marks, maintaining power lever outside IX, blued-steel conventional hour and minute hands for mean time and an additional gilt-brass minute hand (mounted with a sunburst) for apparent solar time, double-screwed mask-and-scroll spandrels, the arch pierced with a demi-circle shaped sector for the silvered year calendar disc engraved with concentric rings calibrated for days of the month and months in Portuguese, the zodiac, the position of the sun in the ecliptic and the equation of time, all read against a central, vertical, blued-steel wire index. Left-hand square for winding, right-hand square for setting the annular disc in the arch.

Movement

The ogee-scooped and stepped arch-top rectangular plates secured by seven pinned baluster pillars with high-count train, inverted deadbeat escapement at the base of Graham pattern, bolt-and shutter maintaining power, the equation kidney (scratch-signed on either side John Shelton, Shoe Lane, London, Agust 25th 1736) mounted on the backplate on an arbor through the plates in turn carrying the year disc in the dial arch, the gilt solar minute hand driven by differential gearing on the frontplate connected via an arbor through to the backplate terminating in a disc-pinion engaged with the rack at the lower end of an elbowed arm with friction roller to its upper end, spring-loaded against the rim of the kidney.

Duration

One month

Provenance

According to oral tradition, originally from a Portuguese royal palace, most likely that of the Palace-Convent of Mafra;
The Tieger Collection, Milan, Italy, sold for £125,000;
John C Taylor Collection, inventory no.69

Escapement

Inverted deadbeat with one second pendulum

John Shelton, Shoe Lane, London (apprenticed 1711 to Henry Stanbury; Clockmakers’ Co. 1720), who worked closely with George Graham, was by mid-century described as the principal person employed by Graham in making astronomical clocks. Trading on his own account, the Iberian market seems to have been his particular niche, there being two equation clocks by him in the Spanish royal collection (see Carvajal, Catalogo do Reloges del Patrimonio Nacional, 1987, p.41), similar to the present clock.

The notation on the present clock is all in Portuguese, lending veracity to the oral tradition that it was supplied to the order of King João (John) V ‘the Magnanimous’ of Portugal (1689-1750). His reign (1706-50) saw the rise of Portugal to new levels of prosperity and prestige among European courts, the direct result of an enormous influx of gold into the coffers of the royal treasury, supplied largely by the ‘royal fifth’ (a tax on mined gold) that was received from its colonies of Brazil and Mananhão. John spent lavishly on ambitious architectural works, most notably the Palace-Convent of Mafra, and on commissions and additions for his sizable art and literary collections. Initially Mafra was a relatively small project for 13 friars, however, once gold from the Portuguese colony of Brazil started to arrive in abundance, the king changed his plans and announced the construction of a sumptuous palace, along with a much-enlarged friary, in emulation of Philip II of Spain’s famed Escorial Palace, outside Madrid. This immense wealth allowed the king to be a generous patron of the arts.

King João’s education at the hands of Catherine of Braganza (Charles II of England’s queen) on her return to Portugal as a widow, plus the fact his own wife was the daughter and sister of the recipients of the Habsburg and Spanish Tompions, could well have prompted an inclination to order a ground-breaking clock such as this from Shelton, who was self-evidently part of the dynasty of clockmakers in succession to Tompion.

Contact us about this item

Product Description

John Shelton, Shoe Lane, London (apprenticed 1711 to Henry Stanbury; Clockmakers’ Co. 1720), who worked closely with George Graham, was by mid-century described as the principal person employed by Graham in making astronomical clocks. Trading on his own account, the Iberian market seems to have been his particular niche, there being two equation clocks by him in the Spanish royal collection (see Carvajal, Catalogo do Reloges del Patrimonio Nacional, 1987, p.41), similar to the present clock.

The notation on the present clock is all in Portuguese, lending veracity to the oral tradition that it was supplied to the order of King João (John) V ‘the Magnanimous’ of Portugal (1689-1750). His reign (1706-50) saw the rise of Portugal to new levels of prosperity and prestige among European courts, the direct result of an enormous influx of gold into the coffers of the royal treasury, supplied largely by the ‘royal fifth’ (a tax on mined gold) that was received from its colonies of Brazil and Mananhão. John spent lavishly on ambitious architectural works, most notably the Palace-Convent of Mafra, and on commissions and additions for his sizable art and literary collections. Initially Mafra was a relatively small project for 13 friars, however, once gold from the Portuguese colony of Brazil started to arrive in abundance, the king changed his plans and announced the construction of a sumptuous palace, along with a much-enlarged friary, in emulation of Philip II of Spain’s famed Escorial Palace, outside Madrid. This immense wealth allowed the king to be a generous patron of the arts.

King João’s education at the hands of Catherine of Braganza (Charles II of England’s queen) on her return to Portugal as a widow, plus the fact his own wife was the daughter and sister of the recipients of the Habsburg and Spanish Tompions, could well have prompted an inclination to order a ground-breaking clock such as this from Shelton, who was self-evidently part of the dynasty of clockmakers in succession to Tompion.

Additional information

Dimensions 5827373 cm