DENT, 61 STRAND & 34 ROYAL EXCHANGE. LONDON. NO. 1344; CIRCA 1852

Details

A Victorian mahogany wall regulator with gravity escapement
Dent, 61 Strand & 34 Royal Exchange. London. No. 1344; circa 1852
The 15 in. diam. silvered regulator dial signed Dent, 61 Strand & 34 Royal Exchange, London. Clock Maker to the Queen. 1344 and engraved on the bezel DENISON'S GRAVITY ESCAPEMENT, all hands of blued steel, the seconds ring inverted with the hour ring and with cut-out showing the escapement with fly wheel, the movement with four robust pillars and rectangular brass plates, the wheels with "club" teeth, Harrison's maintaining power, out-size great wheel, caged pinions, three-leg gravity escapement with steel pallets and brass arms, the pendulum of steel and zinc form with large rhomboid shaped bob with milled and notched rating nut, large black-painted lead weight with recess to the top to take the large brass pulley, the pendulum and movement suspended from a massive black-painted iron back board suspending the mahogany case from two brackets, the case itself with two movement apertures to the sides and below that brass handles, the front with arched rectangular lenticle beneath the glazed dial in-set with Dent's shuttered winding aperture
57¼ ins (145.5 cm) high

Literature

Hans Staeger, 100 Years of Precision Timekeepers from John Arnold to Arnold & Frodsham, 1763-1862, 1997, pp. 175-6, fig. 1 & 2

Special notice

No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VAT at 17.5% will be added to the buyer's premium which is invoiced on a VAT inclusive basis.

Lot Essay

The presence of the inscription on the dial bezel leads one to consider whether this was perhaps a prototype wall regulator for Denison's three leg gravity escapement. One of his very earliest drawings on the gravity escapement is dated December 1846 but his original drawing of the escapement for the Great Clock, (Vaudrey Mercer, Edward John Dent, 1977, pl. 72) is actually dated on the drawing 27 November 1852 which has to be very close to the date of manufacture of the present clock

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