No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VA… Read more

A Charles II olivewood oyster-veneered and line inlaid month-going longcase clock

JOHANNES FROMANTEEL LONDINI. CIRCA 1680

Details

A Charles II olivewood oyster-veneered and line inlaid month-going longcase clock
Johannes Fromanteel Londini. Circa 1680
The hood now reconverted to rising and with moulded flat top, with later ebonised spiral-twist columns, rectangular glazed side panels, with convex throat mouldings above a rectangular trunk door with ebonised moulded frame and geometric line inlays, with central lenticle, the re-built plinth with conforming geometric inlay and raised on later bun feet, the 10in. square gilt brass dial signed along the lower edge Johannes Fromanteel Londini, with winged cherub mask spandrels to a narrow silvered chapter ring with trident half hour markers, the matted centre with large diameter subsidiary silvered seconds ring and date aperture, pierced and faceted steel hands, with latches to the dial feet and to the five slender ringed pillars of the movement supported on later seatboard and cheekboards, with anchor escapement and outside high position countwheel strike on bell, bolt-and-shutter maintaining power, with pendulum suspended from a steel bar regulated by a (restored?) engraved and calibrated regulation dial positioned to the side between the movement plates, with later brass securing bracket to the backboard; case with restorations and associated to dial and movement
75in. (190.5cm.) high

Provenance

Sotheby's New York, Important English Furniture, Decorations and Carpets, 23 January 1988, lot 43a.

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

Ahasuerus Fromanteel, the elder, was born in 1607 in Norwich and possibly apprenticed in Norwich to Jacques van Barton. He moved to London about 1631 and joined the Blacksmiths' Company, becoming a Freeman in 1655/6, indicating that his early working life was probably spent as a journeyman. Most famous for having introduced the pendulum to England in 1658 Fromanteel was a brilliant clockmaker who, despite being constantly at odds with the Clockmakers' Company, managed to thrive and become one of England's most influential and wealthiest clockmakers in the golden age of clockmaking.

More from IMPORTANT CLOCKS AND MARINE CHRONOMETERS

View All