.jpg?w=1)
拍品專文
A rare example of the form made outside of New England, this New York dwarf clock survives in exceptional condition and is an important addition to the small number of known works made by Nehemiah B. Bassett (1770-1844). The case bears an old surface and while the finials and colonettes are replacements made for Mrs. Blair, the interior is pristine with the attachment of the saddleboard undisturbed. Born in Stratford, Connecticut in 1770, the son of Samuel and Eunice (Beach) Bassett, Nehemiah B. Bassett moved in about 1795 to Albany where he advertised his services as both a watch and clock maker (fig. 1). From 1800 to 1805, he was in partnership with the silversmith Joseph Warford (1779-1847) and surviving silver marked by Bassett indicates he also practiced this trade. In 1820, he moved to Schenectady where he died in 1844 at the age of seventy four (James W. Gibbs, entry, An Empire in Time: Clocks and Clock Makers of Upstate New York, G. Russell Oechsle, Helen Boyce, et al. (The National Association of Watch and Clock Collectors, Inc., special order supplement #3, 2003), p. 12).
In the collections of Yale University Art Gallery and the Albany Institute of Art, only two other clocks, both tall-case forms, bearing Bassett's signed dial are known. With similar inlaid detailing, upright pediment, and arched door, the case of the Blair Collection clock illustrates a modified version of the design seen on the larger cases. Furthermore, like the example signed by Bassett and Warford at Yale (fig. 2), the Blair Collection clock has cherry secondary woods and both display the same unusual shaping on the straight bracket feet. With these similarities, it is likely that the clocks' cases were made by the same cabinetmaker. As noted by Norman F. Rice, a possible candidate is Amos Broad, a cabinetmaker who like Bassett, worked on State Street and whose advertisements included an image of a tall-case clock (Norman F. Rice, New York Furniture Before 1840 (Albany, NY, 1962), p. 52; Edwin A. Battison and Patricia E. Kane, The American Clock, 1725-1865 (New York, 1973), cat. 22, pp. 106-107).
In the collections of Yale University Art Gallery and the Albany Institute of Art, only two other clocks, both tall-case forms, bearing Bassett's signed dial are known. With similar inlaid detailing, upright pediment, and arched door, the case of the Blair Collection clock illustrates a modified version of the design seen on the larger cases. Furthermore, like the example signed by Bassett and Warford at Yale (fig. 2), the Blair Collection clock has cherry secondary woods and both display the same unusual shaping on the straight bracket feet. With these similarities, it is likely that the clocks' cases were made by the same cabinetmaker. As noted by Norman F. Rice, a possible candidate is Amos Broad, a cabinetmaker who like Bassett, worked on State Street and whose advertisements included an image of a tall-case clock (Norman F. Rice, New York Furniture Before 1840 (Albany, NY, 1962), p. 52; Edwin A. Battison and Patricia E. Kane, The American Clock, 1725-1865 (New York, 1973), cat. 22, pp. 106-107).