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A George III mahogany and brass-mounted quarter-chiming musical and automaton table clock

EARDLEY NORTON, LONDON. CIRCA 1765

Details

A George III mahogany and brass-mounted quarter-chiming musical and automaton table clock
Eardley Norton, London. Circa 1765
The case with brass handle and pineapple finials to bell top with foliate front mount, all angles chamfered and applied with mounts cast as female busts trailing flowers, silk-backed pierced brass double sound frets to the sides, brass-lined front and rear doors, with brass-bound base raised on bracket feet, the brass dial with foliate scroll spandrels to silvered Roman and Arabic chapter ring, matted centre with date aperture and signed on a recessed silvered plaque Eardley Norton/St John's Street/London, flanked by subsidiary rings for chime/not chime and four tune music selection (Ferdinand, A Minuet, Britons Strike Home/Butterd Lease), a painted orchestral scene above showing three musicians moving their arms, blued steel hands, the eight day movement with six pillars, verge escapement, hour strike on bell and music on nine bells with fifteen hammers via 4 in. barrel, playing part tune on the quarters and full tune on the hour, trip repeat, the back plate engraved with foliate scrolls and strapwork; crank key, two case keys
20½ in. (52 cm.) high, handle down

Special notice

No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VAT at 15% will be added to the buyer's premium which is invoiced on a VAT inclusive basis.

Lot Essay

Eardley Norton (1728-1792) is recorded working in London from 1762 and Free of the Clockmakers' Company from 1770 until his death. A gifted maker, a clock by him graces the cover of Richard C R Barder, The Georgian Bracket Clock 1714-1830, Antique Collectors' Club, 1993 and a musical clock by him is illustrated p.88 in that book. Norton is particularly famous for his musical and astronomical clocks. A superb four-dial astronomical clock is in the British Royal Collection (see Cedric Jagger, Royal Clocks, Hale 1983, figs.151-152). Britten's records him also as having made a fine musical clock for Empress Catherine of Russia (Old Clocks and Watches and Their Makers, Spon, Seventh Edition 1956, p.446). A fine musical clock by Norton was sold Christie's London, Important Clocks, 6 July 2001, lot 69.

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