Clocks · Clock
Aaron Willard Banjo Clock, with Alarm, circa 1820
- Maker / attribution
- Unrecorded in source
- Date
- c. 1820
- Historical period
- Precision & Scientific Horology (1750 – 1850)
- Country of origin
- Unrecorded in source
- Object type
- Clock
- Materials / technique
- brass, glass, gold, mahogany
- Auction house
- LiveAuctioneers auction archive
- Lot
- Item 74140501
- Credit line
- Auction lot record: lot 2201, Maine & Beyond - Summer 2019 - Day 2, Thomaston Place Auction Galleries (2019), via LiveAuctioneers
- Catalogue title (original)
- AARON WILLARD BANJO CLOCK, WITH ALARM, CIRCA 1820 (English)
View the source record (auction lot) ↗ (opens another website in a new tab)Suggest a correction
Record summary
Catalogued by LiveAuctioneers auction archive (lot Item 74140501), this is a clock, dated c. 1820. The Atlas places it in the Precision & Scientific Horology period (1750 – 1850) of its Clocks collection. Materials and techniques recorded by the source: brass, glass, gold, mahogany. The record is illustrated with 4 photographs.
Assembled from the source record's structured fields. Dates and attributions are given as the source states them; where a field is missing the Atlas leaves it blank rather than estimating.
Catalogue description
Lot description — Thomaston Place Auction Galleries
Federal Period Mahogany Case with carved gold rope and block trim, brass bezel, convex glass over painted iron dial signed "A. Willard, Jr., Boston, No. 1728", brass alarm ring behind hands; having pale blue and white simple geometric eglomise panels, (lower panel is cracked), retaining original gilt acorn finial, weight, brass pendulum and winding keys, 33" x 10" x 4". Loss to gilding and dial chips. Not observed running.
Historical context
Precision & Scientific Horology (1750 – 1850)
Harrison solves longitude; Mudge invents the lever; Breguet's Paris workshop defines the modern watch.
The age of the deadbeat escapement, compensated pendulums and observatory regulators. Domestic clocks spread through the middle classes: English longcase and bracket clocks, French gilt-bronze mantel clocks, Viennese Biedermeier wall clocks, Black Forest painted-shield clocks, and the first American shelf clocks.
Read the period in the timelineMore clocks from this periodEarlier: Early Modern Horology
Atlas type guide
Alarm clocks
Alarm work is among the oldest clock functions: monastic clocks woke monks for night prayers, and Renaissance table clocks often carried an alarm disc set by a pin. A separate spring or weight is released at the set time and drives a hammer against a bell. Some early alarms also lit a candle by striking a flint — the 'tinder pistol' alarm.
The cheap, mass-produced alarm clock arrived in the second half of the nineteenth century. American firms such as Seth Thomas and Westclox (the 'Big Ben' of 1910) and German makers such as Junghans and Kienzle made millions of drum-shaped alarms with pin-pallet escapements. Electric, quartz and digital alarm clocks followed in the twentieth century.
What to look for
- A separate alarm-setting dial or disc and an extra winding key.
- Twin bells on top (common after c. 1920) or a bell enclosed in the base.
- Pin-pallet escapements in inexpensive factory alarms.
- Trademarks and patent dates on dial or back.
Dating clues
- Renaissance alarm table clocks: sixteenth to seventeenth centuries.
- Drum alarm clocks: from the 1870s.
- Luminous dials with radium paint: c. 1910–1960.
General guidance written by the Atlas editors about this kind of object. It is not a statement about this particular piece; for that, rely on the source record above and on physical examination.
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