Stock No.

Exhibit No.39

Height

7 feet 10 inches (2388 mm)

Case

The Type 3 case with an oak carcass and superb decorative Kingwood veneers (known then as Princes wood) laid in intricate parquetry patterns with strikingly beautiful circular floral rosettes, with caddy top flanked by four brass ball finials and centred by a further matching finial on a pedestal, pierced sound frets to the double friezes above brass-capped Doric columns, concave throat mouldings, cross-banded plinth raised on a Kingwood veneered double skirting. The backboard with screw-fixed brass T-bracket to attach to the corresponding movement L-bracket.

Dial

12 inch (305 mm) square gilt-brass dial twice signed Geo: Graham London beneath the silvered chapter ring and on an applied silvered oval in the matted centre, which is also pierced with a day-of-the-week sector below XII and calendar aperture above VI and below the shuttered winding hole, the silvered chapter ring with typical lozenge half-hour marks, fine pierced and sculpted blued steel hands, double-screwed Indian mask & scroll spandrels with foliate scroll engraving between (engraver G.515), the shutter lever to a slot on the right of the dial by III, four latched dial feet.

Movement

The substantial 6¼ by 10½ inch (159 by 267 mm) stepped and chamfered top regulator movement with six symmetrically positioned latched step baluster pillars, punch-numbered 639 at the bottom centre of the backplate, with L-bracket to fix to the case, going train of high count with bolt and shutter maintaining power and an early deadbeat escapement, brass-rod pendulum with massive lenticular bob and calibrated rating nut.

Duration

One month

Provenance

1948, Charles Frodsham Ltd. sold to:
Private collection Australia;
Private collection USA; Anthony Woodburn, 2000, sold for £279,000;
The John C Taylor collection, inventory no.103

Literature

Antique Collector, Jan/Feb 1949, Dawson, ‘Decorative Veneers on Early Clock Cases’, illus. fig. 6, 6a & 6b;
Dawson, Drover & Parkes, Early English Clocks, 1982, illus. p.299, pl.426 to 429;
J L Evans, Thomas Tompion at the Dial and Three Crowns, 2006, listed p.83;
Evans, Carter & Wright, Thomas Tompion 300 years, 2013, listed p.609;
Garnier & Carter, The Golden Age of English Horology, 2015, listed p.201

Escapement

Deadbeat