The Scott Knibb, circa 1680

Exhibit No.12

6 foot 6 inches

The case of superbly contrasted and figured walnut veneered onto a cariniana-wood carcass. The rising hood with typical shallow, cushion-moulded, dome top and three finials above a fretted frieze, the dial aperture flanked by Solomonic columns with mirror-reflected turning. The convex throat moulding above the long rectangular trunk door with book-matched veneers, a typical snakes-head head escutcheon and framed with cross-grain D-section mouldings, the ogee base mouldings above a cross-banded book-matched plinth on walnut bun feet.

The 10⅛ inch square fire-gilt brass dial with four latched dial feet, the finely matted centre with calendar aperture below XII, and well-sculpted blued-steel hands. The skeletonised silvered chapter ring with pierced Roman hours and trident half-hour markers, with every Arabic minute numbered outside. Flanked by fire-gilt winged-cherub spandrels; the line engraved border interrupted along the lower edge and signed Joseph Knibb Londini Fecit.

Knibb is perhaps most well known for his ingenious striking methods, such as quarter striking from a single train, found here, but he also limited the use of his beautiful and costly skeletonised chapter rings to his more complicated and expensive clocks, both exemplified in this example.

The delicate two-train quarter-striking weight-driven movement, 5⅞ by 7⅝ inch plates, secured by six latched finned baluster pillars, the going-train with anchor escapement. The strike train governed by a large diameter outside, hour and quarter, countwheel, sounding the quarters on the smaller bell and the hours on the larger, both mounted above. The hammer linkages ingeniously pumped from the under-dial work, to govern the use of each bell and allowing the quarter and hours to be struck from a single train.

Christie’s, 22 March 1989, lot 195;

The Tom Scott Collection, inventory no.50.

R.A. Lee, The Knibb Family Clockmakers, 1964;

Dawson, Drover & Parkes, Early English Clocks, 1982.

Garnier & Carter, The Golden Age of English Horology, 2015, p.360-363.

Height 6 foot 6 inches; width 16 inches; depth 8½ inches

When Tom Scott bought this extraordinary Knibb longcase at auction in 1989, it made a record price of £167,250 (copy of invoice available), out-selling by nearly £40,000 the most expensive of two month-going numbered Tompion longcases sold in that year.

Knibb is perhaps most well known for his ingenious striking methods, such as quarter striking from a single train, found here, but he also limited the use of his beautiful and costly skeletonised chapter rings to his more complicated and expensive clocks, both exemplified in this example.

This case is re-assuringly veneered onto cariniana rather than oak; Knibb’s casemaker apparently acquired a small stock of this distinctive South American wood and used it for carcasses, presumably because of its straight grain and consequent stability (for more details on cariniana, and the short-lived English colony in South America, Willoughbyland, see catalogue p.154).