ATTRIBUTED TO JOHN MOXON OR SIR WILLIAM CONGREVE, CIRCA 1820

Details

A Regency gilt-brass mahogany, bronze and black marble table regulator
Attributed to John Moxon or Sir William Congreve, circa 1820
The four gilt-metal columns on ball feet with ball-and-spire finials flanking a pedimented frame with further ball-and-spire finial surmount, the single chain fusee movement with finely cut wheels each with six crossings, Harrison's maintaining power, engine-turned gilt hours, minutes and seconds dial (later seconds hand), underslung Savage two-pin lever escapement with helical balance spring and finely crossed-out balance wheel with steel timing weights oscillating against their fielded mirrored backdrop within a red velvet-lined base with a foliate cast bronze balustrade, the foliate carved mahogany base resting on a black marble moulded plinth and on five large gilt-metal ball feet with levelling screws, later glass dome
18½ in. (47 cm.) high

Lot Essay

The design of the present clock closely follows the format for that of the rolling ball clocks designed by Sir William Congreve Bt. (1772-1823). Sir William was a colourful gentleman scientist whose principal invention was the Congreve Rocket, a missile used heavily during the Napoleonic wars. Congreve inherited his title in 1814 but was already a fellow of the Royal Society and Member of Parliament. Succeeding his father as comptroller of the Royal Laboratory put him even closer to the attention of the King who it seems took an interest in Congreve's horological inventions. Two of his clocks survive in the Royal Collection both with Congreve's extreme detatched escapement and both signed in combination with John Moxon who appears to have been Congreve's clockmaker.
An almost identical clock signed Robert Roskell of Liverpool and Rio de Janeiro was advertised by Ronald A. Lee, Antiquarian Horology, Vol. six, No. five. December 1969, p. 258

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