THOMAS WHEELER, LONDON. LAST QUARTER 17TH CENTURY

Details

An English brass timepiece lantern clock with alarm
Thomas Wheeler, London. Last quarter 17th Century
With engraved boars' head frets to the front and sides, replaced side doors with apertures for the pendulum, iron back plate with hoop and spikes, the narrow engraved chapter ring with Roman numerals and trident half hour markers, with tulip engraving to the centre below signature Tho Wheeler near the French Church fecit, central alarm disc engraved with a rosette, single steel hand, the thirty-hour movement with going train positioned to the front, with knife-edge verge escapement and pendulum swinging within the frame, alarm work positioned to the inside of the back plate, sounding via double-headed hammer on bell above; two lead weights; together with a later pine wall bracket
33 cm. high

Special notice

Christie’s charges a premium to the buyer on the Hammer Price of each lot sold at the following rates: 29.75% of the Hammer Price of each lot up to and including €5,000, plus 23.8% of the Hammer Price between €5,001 and €400,000, plus 14.28% of any amount in excess of €400,001. Buyer’s premium is calculated on the basis of each lot individually.

Lot Essay

COMPARATIVE LITERATURE:
George White, English Lantern Clocks, Woodbridge, pp.205 & 207

Thomas Wheeler (c.1647-c.1697) was apprenticed in 1647/1648 to Nicholas Coxeter and Freed 1655/56. He was an Assistant in the Clockmakers' Company from 1674, Warden from 1680 and Master in 1684, last attending in 1694. His widow received Company charity in 1701 but Wheeler was almost certainly dead by 1697/98. See Brian Loomes, The Early Clockmakers of Great Britain, Southwick, 1981, p.572.

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