Clocks · Bracket clock
Bracket clock by Purvis, North Audley Street, London, c. 1830–1840
- Maker / attribution
- Purvis (maker)
- Date
- c. 1830–1840
- Historical period
- Precision & Scientific Horology (1750 – 1850)
- Country of origin
- England
- Place
- North Audley Street, London
- Object type
- Bracket clock
- Materials / technique
- ebonised
- Dimensions
- Height 38 cm
- Stock no.
- SKU 21
- Credit line
- Dealer listing, Howard Walwyn (SKU 21)
- Catalogue title (original)
- PURVIS. A fine William IV period ebonised bracket clock. (English)
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Record summary
Catalogued by Howard Walwyn Fine Antique Clocks (dealer), London (stock number SKU 21), this is a bracket clock by Purvis, made in North Audley Street, London, England, dated c. 1830–1840. The Atlas places it in the Precision & Scientific Horology period (1750 – 1850) of its Clocks collection. Materials and techniques recorded by the source: ebonised. Recorded dimensions: Height 38 cm. The record is illustrated with 3 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
Dealer description — Howard Walwyn
A fine William IV period ebonised bracket clock with elegant gilt brass inlays and mounts. The case with a chamfer top is supported by four brass-inlaid ribs. It stands on four gadrooned brass ball feet and has a brass lion’s mask carrying handle to each side with fishscale sound frets. The enamel dial is signed by the maker – PURVIS, North Audley Street, London – and set in an engine turned gilded surround. The blued steel hands are original and have pointed tips. The high-quality heavy duty 8-day double fusee movement strikes the hours on a bell and has pull repeatwork. The finely engraved back plate is also signed by the maker Purvis, Nth Audley Street, Grosvenor Square. Date: 1830-1840 Height : 15 in (38 cm) Width : 9 ½ in (24 cm) Depth : 7 in (19 cm) * Alexander Purvis was working in North Audley St, Grosvenor Square between 1810 and 1845 and is recorded on page 632 of Brian Loomes’s Watchmakers and Clockmakers of the World: Complete 21 st Century edition. His clocks were always of the finest quality for the period. HW5064
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
Bracket, table and spring-driven clocks
Spring-driven clocks freed timekeeping from the hanging weight. The coiled mainspring, documented from the fifteenth century, made portable table clocks possible; to even out its declining force, makers used the fusee, a conical pulley connected to the barrel by a gut line or chain. Renaissance table clocks from Augsburg and Nuremberg — drum-shaped, square or tower-shaped in gilt brass — were luxury scientific objects, often with astronomical dials and alarms.
After the pendulum, English makers developed the bracket clock: a wooden case with a carrying handle, a short pendulum with a verge escapement, and often repeating work to sound the hours on demand at night. Later examples use the anchor escapement. In the nineteenth century, 'table clock' became a broad term for spring clocks of every nationality.
What to look for
- A fusee in the movement (cone-shaped pulley) and the type of line — gut or chain.
- Verge escapement with a short bob pendulum, often with a decoratively engraved backplate.
- Repeat cords or buttons that make the clock strike again on demand.
- Gilt-brass engraved cases and horizontal dials on Renaissance pieces.
- Case shapes: inverted bell, bell top, break-arch, lancet or balloon.
Dating clues
- Drum and tower table clocks: c. 1520–1650.
- Ebony veneered English bracket clocks with verge escapements: c. 1670–1800.
- Engraved backplates were usual on English clocks until c. 1800, then generally plain.
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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