A GEORGE III MAHOGANY STRIKING ORGAN CLOCK

Details

A GEORGE III MAHOGANY STRIKING ORGAN CLOCK
William Vale London

the case with shaped panel to the double-footed plinth, brass capped and reeded columns flanking the break-arch trunk door, similar columns to the hood with pagoda top, the dial signed William Vale London on a brass plaque in the arch, brass Roman and Arabic chapter ring with black painted steel hands, the foliate engraved centre with subsidiary seconds and calendar aperture, foliate spandrels, the clock movement of standard form with anchor escapement and strike on bell, the whole engulfed within the massive brass frame for the weight-driven organ movement and wound from the right side of hood, 10in. long wood pin barrel activating 17 wood rods playing on 18 zinc pipes and 16 wooden pipes, the massive wood and vellum bellows position transversely across the top of the plates now lacking connection to the pipes, the music playing every three hours with alternative tunes; 100th. psalm for Sunday, Chalks hornpipe, The Feathers, Regalia Minuet, Cassino, The Waterman, Jannissaries March
8ft. 6in. (260cm.) high

Provenance

The Stedman/Powell Family.

Lot Essay

This unusual organ clock has remained in the possession of the Stedman Family to the present day. Within the family history annals the clock can be traced back to James Stedman (born 1733) who was "visiting London and heard the clock playing. Taken with its sound he enquired and purchased it. He was told there were only three like it made". Furthermore Susannah Sparkman (James Steadman's daughter) is recorded as giving her son Philip the "old Stedman clock" which "he wound religiously every Sunday morning after church, but before dinner"

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