Lot Essay
This mantel clock was sold in 1811 to William Tennant Esq. for 40 gns. at which time it had a velvet stand and a glass shade.
The bronze-enriched clock is conceived in the French antique manner with its Etruscan pearl-wreathed face incorporated in a sacred urn-capped altar that is attended by sphere-guarding lions, while its Grecian stepped plinth is embellished with a flowered ribbon-guilloche derived from Apollo's Temple at Palmyra. The various elements can be found on other contemporary clocks by Benjamin Vulliamy of Pall Mall (d. 1854): the lions and urn appear on a clock number 389 (sold anonymously in these Rooms, 17 November 1988, lot 22) and the ribbon-guilloche on a clock numbered 356 (sold by Henry Vyner, Esq. in these Rooms, 29 March 1984, lot 17).
The bronze-enriched clock is conceived in the French antique manner with its Etruscan pearl-wreathed face incorporated in a sacred urn-capped altar that is attended by sphere-guarding lions, while its Grecian stepped plinth is embellished with a flowered ribbon-guilloche derived from Apollo's Temple at Palmyra. The various elements can be found on other contemporary clocks by Benjamin Vulliamy of Pall Mall (d. 1854): the lions and urn appear on a clock number 389 (sold anonymously in these Rooms, 17 November 1988, lot 22) and the ribbon-guilloche on a clock numbered 356 (sold by Henry Vyner, Esq. in these Rooms, 29 March 1984, lot 17).