Clocks · Bracket clock
Bracket clock, London, c. 1695
- Maker / attribution
- Unrecorded in source
- Date
- c. 1695
- Historical period
- Early Modern Horology (1600 – 1750)
- Country of origin
- England
- Place
- London
- Object type
- Bracket clock
- Materials / technique
- tortoiseshell
- Dimensions
- Height 39.5 cm
- Stock no.
- SKU 226
- Credit line
- Dealer listing, Howard Walwyn (SKU 226)
- Catalogue title (original)
- ANTHOINE GUIGUER RARE WILLIAM III PERIOD PEWTER INLAID TORTOISESHELL QUARTER REPEATING BRACKET CLOCK (English)
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Record summary
Catalogued by Howard Walwyn Fine Antique Clocks (dealer), London (stock number SKU 226), this is a bracket clock, made in London, England, dated c. 1695. The Atlas places it in the Early Modern Horology period (1600 – 1750) of its Clocks collection. Materials and techniques recorded by the source: tortoiseshell. Recorded dimensions: Height 39.5 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 and rare William III period pewter inlaid tortoiseshell quarter repeating bracket clock of eight day duration. The dome top case is veneered with red tortoiseshell with ebony mouldings, pewter inlays and very delicately engraved pewter sound frets. The 7 inch rectangular brass dial is mounted with winged cherub head spandrels and a silvered chapter ring. The centre is finely matted with an aperture to view the day of the month and a dummy pendulum aperture. The maker’s signature is engraved at the top within scrolling foliage. The twin fusee 8-day duration movement has a restored verge escapement, hour strike with strike/silent and pull quarter repeat mechanism, the quarters being sounded on six bells and the hours on a separate bell. The backplate of the movement has a wheatear border and flower and bird engraving. There has been sympathetic restoration to the verge escapement and the quarter work appears to be original. Height: 15 ½ in (39.5 cm) excluding handle * Antoine Guiguer is listed on page 271 of Brian Loomes’s The Early Clockmakers of Great Britain. He was made a Free Brother of the Clockmakers’ Company in 1687 and is recorded as having an “illicit” apprentice James Girod. From his name it is most probably that he was of French Huguenot origin. Tortoiseshell veneered table clocks were made for a very short period in the last quarter of the 17th century and are consequently very rare. Signed / Inscribed Anthoine Guiguer London
Historical context
Early Modern Horology (1600 – 1750)
Huygens' pendulum and balance spring transform accuracy; English makers develop the anchor and deadbeat escapements.
Huygens's pendulum (1656–57) improved clock accuracy from about a quarter of an hour to under a minute a day. The anchor escapement (c. 1670) and the long seconds pendulum created the longcase clock; London makers such as Fromanteel, Knibb, Tompion and Quare led European clockmaking, and French makers created the Boulle pendule.
Read the period in the timelineMore clocks from this periodEarlier: Renaissance 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.
Read next:Anchor (recoil) escapement
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