拍品 89
89
A fine English brass and ebonised wood skeleton timepiece
No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VA… 顯示更多
A fine English brass and ebonised wood skeleton timepiece

COPIED DIRECTLY FROM THE MODEL BY JOHN JOSEPH MERLIN DATED 1776. CIRCA 1985

細節
A fine English brass and ebonised wood skeleton timepiece
Copied directly from the model by John Joseph Merlin dated 1776. Circa 1985
Raised on a central brass column with four outer supporting columns surmounted by urn finials, the movement with single fusee and wire lines to spring barrel with skeletonised caps, the centre wheel meshing with an endless screw worm drive having a vertical steel arbor to the horizontal crown wheel held above the plates and with a silvered band indicating the seconds, the escapement with unusual verge pallets and the spring-suspended pendulum with regulation nut above the crown wheel, the revolving silvered minute and hour rings read through conjoined brass windows with blued steel pointer, the hour ring jumping every 60 minutes, the silvered month ring read through a brass window to the side of the hour ring, the hours and minutes also read from a conventional silvered Roman and Arabic chapter ring withing the minute ring, the clock resting on a circular ebonised wood base with adjustable feet and plumb-line running down the front column, the base applied with a silvered oval plaque engraved Jas Merlin Inventor London; with glass dome
15½in. (39cm.) high
出版
Anne French, John Joseph Merlin the Ingenious Machanic, exhibition catalogue and biography, Kenwood House, 1985.
注意事項
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.

拍品專文

A full description and colour illustrations of this clock may be found in John Joseph Merlin, the Ingenious Mechanic, op. cit. pp. 64, fig B4.
An interesting comment is made about the unusual use of the endless screw which engages with the centre arbor and may have been inspired by its use in the movements of automata and roasting jacks and for driving a fan-fly. It may also be found in the patent drawing for the smoke-jack of his Dutch oven. The present clock is a well made and faithful copy of the original at Kenwood House.