Lot 528
528
An ormolu and porphyry mantel clock, early 19th century
No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VA… Read more From The Humphrey Whitbread Collection
An ormolu and porphyry mantel clock, early 19th century

Details
An ormolu and porphyry mantel clock, early 19th century
The standing classical maiden supporting a circular drum with enamel Roman chapter ring, signed J. BRAMBLE LONDON., with skeletonised centre and spade hands, the single-chain fusee movement with anchor escapement, on a square plinth with foliate moulding, English movement and associated, with pendulum and modern winder, the case probably Italian
23¾in. (60.5cm.) high
Literature
C.Musgrave, Regency Furniture 1800-1830, London, 1961 pl.6 (shown in situ in Mrs.Whitebread's Room at Southill from the Regency Exhibition).
Exhibited
Brighton, The Royal Pavilion, 1951, The Regency Exhibition, no. 301
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. This lot is subject to Collection and Storage Charges.

Lot Essay

The clock, displayed on an Egyptian porphyry 'altar' plinth, is framed by an ormolu wreath and borne by a caryatic figure of a priestess.This richly-draped figure, with long ringlets in the manner of a Citharaedus, may have been executed by Giuseppe Valadier (d. 1839), who succeeded to the Rome workshop of his father Luigi Valadier in 1785 as silversmith and bronze founder. The firm had been founded in 1725 by his grandfather Andrea and was sold only in 1827, having been the leading silversmith and bronze-founders of Rome for a century. A similar figure, serving as a candlestick, was sketched in Valadier's workshops in 1795 by the architect Charles Heathcote Tatham, when he was seeking appropriate furnishings for Henry Holland's decoration of Carlton House, London for George, Prince of Wales, later George IV. (The sketch, now in the Victoria & Albert Museum, is illustrated in Sotheby's sale catalogue, 13 June 1997, lot 89).

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