Stock No.

Exhibit No.36

Height

Clock 16¾ inches (425 mm); Travel case 18½ inches (470 mm)

Case

The typical Phase 3 case comprises an oak carcass with ebony veneers and mouldings, the inverted bell top is surmounted by a well cast gilt-brass acanthus and thistle bud handle with rosette terminals. The front door is applied with Tompion’s gilt-brass masked and foliate cast sound fret to the top rail, having raised mouldings to the aperture and a shell centred gilt brass foliate mount below and with typical gilt-brass cartouche escutcheons. The sides are applied with raised break arch mouldings. The front door sill is clearly stamped 537 twice below the fruitwood mask with inset pierced wood fret. The front and rear doors retain the original lock and hinges and the base rests on ebony moulded block feet.

Dial

The 7 by 8 inch (178 mm by 203 mm) dial retains the original fire gilding and is signed Tho: Tompion & Geo: Graham London within foliate engraving by Graver 515 and flanked by subsidiary dials for pendulum regulation and strike/silent. The silvered chapter ring has Roman & Arabic numerals with diamond half-hour and half-quarter hour marks. The finely matted centre has a mock pendulum aperture and the original finely sculpted blued steel hands. Mask-and-foliate spandrels in the lower dial quadrant with double screws, in Tompion’s manner, foliate upper quadrant spandrels abutting the subsidiary rings. The three dial feet are typically latched to the inside of the front plate and the rear of the dial is scratch marked 537.

Movement

The substantial movement has seven latched finned and knopped pillars, the spring barrels and fusees retain their original chains, the going train has a pivoted verge escapement with the pendulum spring suspended in Tompion’s usual manner from a brass regulation bar atop the backplate with foliate engraved cocks. The strike train rack striking the hours on the larger bell via a rack system operating on the inside of the backplate. The repeat train operates on Tompion’s all-or-nothing system with double-cocked interlocking blued steel levers on the backplate repeating the hours and quarters, the latter on the smaller bell. The hour bell inked with repairers marks for Jan 23, 1761 and Aug 14, 1788. The backplate by Graver 515 is engraved with fine quality scrolling foliage, flowers and strapwork within a line border and centred by an oval cartouche signed Tho: Tompion & Geo: Graham London. The cartouche having a central urn above with a bird atop between a pair of cornucopiae and further birds. On either side are more birds, garlands and strap work encircled by two serpents. The centre base of the backplate is clearly numbered 537 above the line border. The movement is secured in the case in Tompion’s usual manner with two steel bolts through the baseboard into the bottom pillars and by two foliate engraved backplate brackets, both also stamped 537.

Duration

8 days

Provenance

Rudolph Palumbo Collection, thence by descent until sold 2013,
for £330,000;
John C Taylor collection, inventory no.152

Literature

RW Symonds, Thomas Tompion, His Life and Work, 1951, illus. p.157, fig.134 and p.207, fig. 200;
Horological Journal, December 1951, p.794

Escapement

Pivoted verge with spring suspended lenticular pendulum