CIRCA 1815-20, THE MOVEMENT BY VULLIAMY, LONDON

This ornamental clock case in the ‘Roman’ or ‘full-blooded proto-Regency’ taste is closely related to several clocks created by Benjamin Vulliamy in 1811, although the perched eagle appears as early as 1800 on a clock made for Sir W. Featherstone, no. 324, now in the Huntington Art Gallery (see R. Smith, ‘Benjamin Vulliamy’s library: a collection of Neo-classical design sources’, The Burlington Magazine, vol. 141, no. 1155, June 1999, p. 328 for clock no. 469, which has an identically modeled eagle and snake-encircled dial). Another variation of this clock, no. 483, was sold to Robert La Touche Esquire for 48 guineas on 6 July 1811 (Antiques Trade Gazette, 8 December 2007, page VI). Inspired by antiquity, Vulliamy used published sources by 18th century designers and craftsmen together with contemporaneous drawings by, for example, C.H. Tatham; some of which are found in his library of art books and engravings in the auction sale catalogue of 1824 (ibid., p. 328). The present clock bears no. 647. Unfortunately, the Vulliamy clock books at the British Horological Institute are incomplete, and the 500 and 600 series are no longer extant, which prohibits identification of the original client. However, further, but partial records at the Public Record Office, Kew, suggest that the 600 series would have been between 1815-20; the longevity of the clock case design implying that it remained highly fashionable several years after Benjamin Vulliamy's death.