GEORGE CLARKE, LONDON, CIRCA 1740

George Clarke (active 1725-40, d.1766.) worked in Leadenhall Street. He produced some extravagant musical longcase and table clocks for export to the Near and far East. Britten (Old Clocks and Watches and their Makers, 7th edition) states ''the Earl of Macartney, our first ambassador to China, mentioned as a prominent object in the palace of the Chinese Emperor at Pekin, a musical table clock inscribed 'George Clarke'. Another by him was in the Wetherfield Collection (E.Bruton The Wetherfield Collection of Clocks, London, 1981, p. 110) and a table clock for the Turkish market, glass mounted with conforming outset columns to the present clock, is in the drawing room of Goldsmiths Hall, London.