Stock No.

Exhibit No.13

Height

6 foot 2 inches (1880 mm)

Case

The architectural case veneered in walnut onto an oak carcass, the rising hood with walnut long-grain mouldings to the tympanum above a plain frieze, which is supported by gilt-brass multi-piece Corinthian capitals on three-quarter tapered walnut columns to the front and matching quarter columns to the rear, against fillets rising behind the entablature. The hood resting on a block-moulded walnut convex throat moulding above a foursection book-matched walnut veneered rectangular trunk door, mounted straight to the trunk sides. Thee plain walnut book-matched veneered plinth, below the walnut cavetto/ovolo block moulding and raised on four turned walnut bun feet.

Dial

The 9½ inch (242 mm) square brass dial with traces of the original gilding, and cherub’s head spandrels to each corner, signed Johannes Fromanteel Londini Fecit along the lower edge, and held to the frontplate by four latched dial feet. The silvered Roman chapter ring with trident half-hours and Arabic minutes every 5 within the divisions. The matted centre with subsidiary silvered seconds ring mounted below XII, low set, narrow spaced, shuttered winding holes and a square chamfered date aperture above VI, and well sculpted hands in blued steel.

Movement

The tall rectangular movement with four latched finned baluster pillars and bolt-and-shutter maintaining power. The two trains with large great wheels on opposing ends of each barrel; the going has an early anchor escapement with long pallet arms mounted on a tapered square section arbor with a corresponding pallet aperture in the backplate; the strike train with an external inertial fly outside the backplate, and governed by an internal countwheel mounted direct on the frontplate side of the strike train greatwheel, striking the hours via a horizontal hammer arbor on a large bell above. The lower pillars guided into place by taper pins and the whole resting on typical early seatboard blocks and held by a bracket to the backboard.

Internal countwheel hour striking, fixed to the greatwheel

Duration

8 days

Provenance

Private collection UK;
1996 with Anthony Woodburn and sold for £125,000;
John C Taylor Collection, inventory no.46

Literature

Huygens’ Legacy, The Golden Age of the Pendulum Clock, 2004, p.122-123;
Garnier & Hollis, Innovation & Collaboration, 2018, p.242

Escapement

Early anchor with long pallet arms to reduce pendulum amplitude