A GEORGE II WALNUT LONGCASE CLOCK

GEORGE GRAHAM, LONDON. NO. 679, CIRCA 1740

Details

A GEORGE II WALNUT LONGCASE CLOCK
george graham, london. no. 679, circa 1740
The gilt-brass 12in. sq. dial with silvered Roman and Arabic chapter ring with typical lozenge half-hour markers, pierced blued steel hands, the finely matted centre with large diameter subsidiary seconds ring and calendar aperture with pin-hole adjustment, the silvered oval signature disc engraved Geo: Graham, London, similar signature engraved below VI, Indian mask-and-foliate spandrels, bolt-and-shutter maintaining power lever between chapters II and III, latches to the dial feet and to the five pillar movement with rack strike on bell, anchor escapement with rectangular section brass-rod pendulum terminating with a calibrated rating nut, the backplate punch-numbered 679 at the base, T-bar movement securing bracket to the backboard, the hood with typical caddy top and foliate pierced wood frieze sound fret, brass-capped ¾ columns flanking foliate-pierced wood soundfrets to the sides, feather-banded rectangular trunk door with giltmetal foliate-cast escutcheon, the inside lead moulding twice punch numbered 679, the feather-banded plinth on a double skirted foot
89in. (226cm.) high

Lot Essay

George Graham, (circa1673-1751) was born in Fordingbridge, Westmorland, and apprenticed in London to Henry Aske until 1695. Immediately afterwards he went to work for Thomas Tompion as a journeyman and in 1704 married his Master's niece, Elizabeth Tompion, and soon afterwards went into partnership with Tompion. In addition to his natural eye for proportion and design Graham invented the deadbeat escapement in 1715, and in 1726 both the mercury pendulum and the cylinder escapement for watches. Whilst he is purported to have made some 3,000 watches, he made only about 200 clocks of which a very small proportion were longcase. Dubbed by his contemporaries as 'Honest George Graham', he died a wealthy man and was buried in Westminster Abbey in the same grave as Thomas Tompion.

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