A CHARLES II BLACK AND GILT JAPANNED THIRTY-HOUR LONGCASE CLOCK WITH ALARM

THOMAS TOMPION, LONDON, UNNUMBERED, CIRCA 1680

Details

A CHARLES II BLACK AND GILT JAPANNED THIRTY-HOUR LONGCASE CLOCK WITH ALARM
thomas tompion, london, unnumbered, circa 1680
The 10in. sq. dial with silvered Roman chapter ring with pierced blued steel hand, the tulip-engraved centre with central rosette-engraved silvered alarm disc, signed Tho: Tompion Londini Fecit within an engraved lambrequin, winged cherub-and-foliate spandrels, the large lantern movement with four pillars of circular section secured with brass nuts at the top, the going train with verge escapement and short bob pendulum, large diameter countwheel strike on a large bell above, the alarm sounding on the same bell with a typical double-headed hammer, the case with flat-top rising hood, Knibb-type pierced giltwood frieze soundfrets, twist columns to the front and back, convex throat moulding to the rectangular trunk door with raised gilt chinoiserie decoration on a black lacquered ground, similar decoration to the sides and plinth on simple skirted foot

Provenance

The late Rev'd E.H. Isaac, Millom, Cumbria

Literature

Tom Robinson, The Longcase Clock, Woodbridge, 1995, pp. 118-120, fig. 6/1
F.H. Green, Old English Clocks, 1931, pls. V + VI
Antique Collecting (The Antique Collectors' Club), Tom Robinson, Lacquered or Japanned Longcase Clocks,, December 1981, vol. 16 No. 7, pp. 13-17, fig 6/1
COMPARATIVE LITERATURE
R.W. Symonds, Thomas Tompion, his life and work, London, 1969, pp. 104, 108, 175, figs. 95 & 101

Lot Essay

Tompion's thirty-hour clocks were made in very few numbers the reason presumably being that he made very little money from them and that they were principally ordered for 'below stairs'.
The most comparable clock to this example is the one in the Clockmakers' Company whcih is illustrated in R.W. Symonds, Thomas Tompion, his life and work, op. cit.. By coincidence it was recently discovered that in 1986 the then owner of the present clock, The Reverend E.H. Isaac, had written to the Clockmakers' Company to ask if they could shed any light on his lacquered Tompion clock which had fallen into disrepair and needed some work doing to the case. The Clockmakers' Company wrote back to express their excitement at this recent discovery of an early un-numbered Tompion clock, and to ask if they might send a clockmaker up to Cumbria to examine the movement in order that they might copy the design of the alarm train which was missing from theirs; thec lockmaker was sent up and the movement was dutifully copied.