A Queen Anne ebony and gilt-metal mounted striking table clock with pull quarter repeat

DANIEL QUARE, LONDON. CIRCA 1710

Details

A Queen Anne ebony and gilt-metal mounted striking table clock with pull quarter repeat
Daniel Quare, London. Circa 1710
The case with large gilt-brass baluster-form handle to the inverted bell top applied with elaborate gilt-metal mounts to the four sides cast with a central bearded Indian with feather headdress flanked by addorsed lions' heads, surmounted by a scallop shell supporting swags of husks within further foliage and flower heads, four later gilt-metal urn-and-leaf finials to each corner, the front door applied with gilt-metal escutcheons cast with crowned and foliate embellished masks, later pierced brass escutcheons to the front door and glazed sides, the 6½ x 7½in. brass dial signed at the top and base D.Quare London within foliate spandrels, flanked by two subsidiary silvered dials at the top for Strike/Silent and pendulum regulation at the base Pen Loose Pen Fast and Repeat Not Repeat, the matted centre with ringed winding holes and ring-decoration to the false pendulum and calendar apertures, silvered Roman and Arabic chapter ring signed D Quare London and with original (restored) blued steel hands, the movement with substantial thick brass plates secured by six ringed pillars, verge escapement, twin chain fusees, spring-suspended pendulum regulated on Tompion's rack system by the top left subsidiary dial via a rack-and-pinion system on the backplate, brass arms at the base of the back plate articulating to secure the pendulum bob operated via the lower left subsidiary dial, pull quarter repeat on four bells with hour strike on a further bell, the back plate profusely engraved with scrolling foliage and signed Daniel Quare London within a wheatear-engraved oval in the centre

Lot Essay

The four subsidiary dials on the present clock are unusual, with Quare apparently reserving these features for his better clocks. Comparable examples are illustrated on the front cover of Antiquarian Horology (No.2, Vol.II, June 1959) and in Eric Bruton The Wetherfield Collection of Clocks, NAG Press, 1981, p.36. Another may be seen in Percy Dawson The Iden Clock Collection, Antique Collectors' Club, 1987, p.128. It is interesting to compare this design also with a Fromanteel grande sonnerie table clock dating circa 1695 which is illustrated on the front cover of the Iden book (also pp.48-49).

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