Height

13 inches

Case

Ebonised fruitwood veneers and mouldings on oak, the inverted-bell top with knopped handle, glazed sides with inset brass frames, front door with brass framed quarter sound frets flanking the inset brass framed breakarch dial aperture, the base on ebonised moulded block feet.

Dial

4¾ by 6¼ inch breakarch brass dial with four feet, Strike/Silent silvered subsidiary ring to the arch, silvered chapter-ring with Roman hours, lozenge half-hour marks and Arabic minutes, flanked by foliate spandrels, with blued-steel hands. The matted centre with mock pendulum and calendar apertures, signed on an oval silvered plaque Nat Seddon St James’s London.

Movement

4¼ by 5⅛ inch plates with five ringed baluster pillars and twin fusees, going train with knife-edge verge escapement and short bob pendulum. Strike train governed by rack-and-snail sounding the hours on a large bell, repeating the quarters on four smaller graduated bells, engraved with foliate scrolls and strapwork centred by a basket of flowers over two dolphins.

Duration

8-day.

Provenance

Bonhams, 9 Dec. 2008, lot 146 (£18,450).

Literature

Garnier & Carter, The Golden Age of English Horology, 2015, p.418-419.

Escapement

Knife-edge verge.