Clocks · Cabinet clock
Cabinet Clock
- Maker / attribution
- James Cox (artist)
- Date
- c. 1770–75
- Historical period
- Precision & Scientific Horology (1750 – 1850)
- Country of origin
- England
- Place
- England, late 18th century
- Object type
- Cabinet clock
- Materials / technique
- gold, agate, enamel dial, glass
- Dimensions
- Overall: 16.5 x 8.9 cm (6 1/2 x 3 1/2 in.)
- Holding institution
- Cleveland Museum of Art
- Accession / object no.
- 2009.77
- Credit line
- Gift of Howard F. Stirn
- Catalogue title (original)
- Cabinet Clock (English)
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Record summary
Held and catalogued by Cleveland Museum of Art (object number 2009.77), this is a cabinet clock by James Cox, made in England, late 18th century, dated c. 1770–75. The Atlas places it in the Precision & Scientific Horology period (1750 – 1850) of its Clocks collection. Materials and techniques recorded by the source: gold, agate, enamel dial, glass. Recorded dimensions: Overall: 16.5 x 8.9 cm (6 1/2 x 3 1/2 in.). The record is illustrated with 6 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
Description — Cleveland Museum of Art
In the 1700s and early 1800s, luxurious objects such as jewelry, miniatures, snuff boxes, and vanity cases emphasized their owner’s refinement and wealth. Especially popular were small cases with clocks and moving mechanical devices that played a handful of musical tunes. James Cox, the London goldsmith responsible for this clock and case, was known for creating such tuneful surprises, although this work no longer contains such a mechanism. Its glittering surface disguises a system based on the labor and suffering of enslaved people, whether in gold and stone mines or in shops where these goods were made by indentured apprentices. Many of these timepieces were designed for export and sold to the Chinese emperor Ch'ien Lung (1711–1799) and his court in attempt to balance out the substantial amount of tea that Britain was importing at the time.
Inscriptions & marks
signed "Jas Cox"
Provenance
Private collection, New York; Howard F. Stirn [1923-2016], Cleveland, OH, given to the Cleveland Museum of Art; The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
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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