SAMUEL TOULMIN, LONDON. CIRCA 1770

Details

A George III mahogany longcase clock
Samuel Toulmin, London. Circa 1770
The case with raised rectangular panel to the double footed plinth, brass-capped and brass reeded quarter columns flanking the trunk door with breakarch top, similar detached columns to the hood supporting an arch with foliate pierced blind gilt frieze fret, the brass dial plate applied with a square enamel dial with convex Roman and Arabic chapter ring with blued steel hands and signed in the centre Saml. Toulmin Strand LONDON with subsidiary seconds ring and calendar aperture decorated with painted foliage, with brass ferrules to the leaf-decorated winding holes, the spandrels painted with shells and scrolling foliage and each with a bird in flight, similar painted decoration to the arch centred by the recessed and convex strike/silent ring and decorated with foliage and insects, the five pillar rack striking movement with anchor escapement
7 ft. 8 in. (234 cm.) high

Special notice

VAT rate of 5% is payable on hammer price plus buyer's premium.

Lot Essay

Vitreous enamel dials such as on this clock are relatively rare, as they were difficult and expensive to produce. Vitreous enamel or liquid suspension of powdered white glass was applied as a glaze on to a thin metal sheet and then fired at high temperature. This firing, and the difference in expansion between enamel and copper, placed the enamel under stress and made it vulnerable to cracking. To avoid this the dials were made in separate sections which were secured to a brass framework, as may be seen on the present clock. Such dials appear to have been made in London, possibly by Anthony Tregent, whose brother James was Clockmaker to the Prince of Wales. Tregent left the Battersea enamel factory in 1754 to set up on his own. Other makers of enamel dial plates listed in a directory of 1763 are John Brest of Hatton Garden and Francis Gilander of Clerkenwell, although it is probable that they made dials for watches and bracket clocks. See John Robey The Longcase Clock Reference Book, Volume 2, Mayfield Books, 2001, pp.532-534. A comparable dial is also illlustrated in Derek Roberts British Longcase Clocks, Schiffer, 1990, p.220, Fig.320.

Toulmin, Samuel. Worked from the Strand, London. First recorded 1757, died 1783.

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