BY JOHN WHITEHURST, DERBY, CIRCA 1780

Details

A GEORGE III MAHOGANY WHEEL BAROMETER
BY JOHN WHITEHURST, DERBY, CIRCA 1780
With columnar stem and terminating in twinned pierced acanthus leaves, the circular dial edged with beading and foliage, the dial signed 'Whitehurst / Derby', originally with a finial
43 in. (109.2 cm.) high, 14 in. (35.6 cm.) wide, 2 ¼ in. (5.7 cm.) deep

Provenance

With Randolph Ltd., Baldock, Hertfordshire.
Private Collection, England.
With Randolph Ltd., Baldock, Hertfordshire.
Private Collection, London.
With Ronald Phillips Ltd., London.
Acquired by Irene Roosevelt Aitken from the above, 12 May 2016.

Literature

CINOA International Art Treasures Exhibition, London, 1962, fig. 128.
N. Goodison, English Barometers 1680-1860, London, 1969, p. 260, fig. 158.
E. Benfield, Barometers, Wheel of Banjo, London, 1985, p. 30, fig. 24.
N. Goodison and R. Kern, Hotspur: 80 Years of Antique Dealing, London, p. 248, fig. 6.

Conditions of sale

Brought to you by

Elizabeth Seigel Vice President, Specialist, Head of Private and Iconic Collections

eseigel@christies.com +1 212 484 4812

Lot Essay

John Whitehurst (1761–1834), recorded at 22 Irongate, Derby, belonged to a distinguished family of barometer-makers renowned for their angle and wheel barometers. He also supplied his fellow member of the Lunar Society, Matthew Boulton (1728–1809), with the majority of his clock movements.

Other examples of this rare and distinguished model by John Whitehurst include:

1. One in the Untermyer Collection in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, formerly in the Henry Hirsch collection (illustrated in Y. Hackenbroch, English Furniture, The Collection of Irwin Untermyer, Norwich, 1958, pl. 20, fig. 36

2. One sold anonymously (Arthur Leidesdorf); Sotheby's, London, 27-28 June 1974, lot 158.

3. One with more elaborately carved frame, sold from the collection of Walter Chrysler; Parke-Bernet Galleries, New York, 29-30 April 1960, lot 220.

4. One in the Gerstenfeld Collection, Washington D.C. (illustrated in E. Lennox-Boyd, ed., Masterpieces of English Furniture: The Gerstenfeld Collection, London, 1998, p. 242, cat. 99).

5. One sold from the collection of Dick Turpin; Christie's, London, 9 March 2006, lot 111 (£38,400). This barometer was possibly also the one sold from the collection of Benjamin Sonnenberg; Sotheby's, New York, 5-6 June 1979, lot 1641.

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