JOHN ELLICOTT, LONDON. CIRCA 1765

細節

A fine George III brass-mounted mahogany quarter chiming bracket clock
John Ellicott, London. Circa 1765
The case with foliate cast brass handle to the inverted bell top, fishscale brass frets to the sides, the brass bound base on foliate scroll feet, convex glazed front door with foliate cast spandrels to each corner, the square dial plate with a circular white enamel Roman and Arabic chapter disc signed Ellicott London, pierced blued steel hands, strike/silent lever to top right corner of the dial plate, the massive seven pillar movement with triple wire fusees, quarter chiming on eight bells with hour strike on a further large bell, now with Vulliamy-type deadbeat escapement (previously recoil), Vulliamy-type pendulum with massive brass bob secured to a foliate engraved folding pendulum holdfast block, the backplate engraved with foliage centred by an urn on a pedestal and signed at the bottom Ellicott London; with the original brass-mounted wall bracket with forward sliding key compartment
28 in. (71 cm.) high over wall bracket

注意事項

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

拍品專文

John Ellicott FRS, 1706-1772, was one of the most pre-eminent clock and watch makers of the 18th century. He took premises in Sweetings Alley, near the Royal Exchange, about 1728. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1738, serving on its council for three years. His friends included such luminaries as Sir Hans Sloane, John Senex the clebrated globe maker and the astronomer John Hadley. Ellicott even had an observatory set up at his home in Hackney.

In a portrait painted by Nathaniel Dance he is shown with drawings of his compensated pendulum and it is for his work on the pendulum and temperature compensation that he is perhaps best known. In 1751 he presented a paper to the Royal Society Contrivances for preventing the Irregularity of Pendulums Arising from Temperature. He also read a paper detailing the Influence which two Pendulum Clocks were observed to have on each other.

Above all, Ellicott was renowned for the consistent fine quality of his clocks and watches. The present clock is a rare three train example of a clock that Ellicott made usually with a two train movement, only occasionally did he employ an enamel dial. The wall bracket is a particularly rare survival which shows this clock off to excellent effect. Ellicott was particularly keen on using wall bracket where the lower body of the bracket may be slid forwards to reveal a key compartment.