Clocks · Bracket clock
Chamfer top bracket clock by Moore, London, c. 1825
- Maker / attribution
- Moore (maker)
- Date
- c. 1825
- Historical period
- Precision & Scientific Horology (1750 – 1850)
- Country of origin
- England
- Place
- London
- Object type
- Bracket clock
- Materials / technique
- rosewood
- Dimensions
- Height 19 in (48 cm)
- Stock no.
- Product 549
- Credit line
- Dealer listing, P A Oxley (product 549)
- Catalogue title (original)
- Chamfer top bracket clock Moore of London (English)
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Record summary
Catalogued by P A Oxley (dealer), Wiltshire (stock number Product 549), this is a bracket clock by Moore, made in London, England, dated c. 1825. The Atlas places it in the Precision & Scientific Horology period (1750 – 1850) of its Clocks collection. Materials and techniques recorded by the source: rosewood. Recorded dimensions: Height 19 in (48 cm). 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
Dealer description — P A Oxley
An excellent quality rosewood bracket clock by this well known Clockmaker The 8 day duration double fusee movement with anchor escapement, striking and repeating the hours on a bell and with a strike/silent facility above the number XII. The round white dial with Roman chapters, finely made matching brass hands and signed by the maker, John Moore & Son, Clerkenwell, London. The movement also with engraved backplate border and a transportation feature for the engraved pendulum bob. The well figured rosewood veneered case of typical chamfer top form. Featuring brass bordered recessed panels to the front elevation, brass fish scale sound frets to the sides and elaborate brass carrying handles. The chamfer top surmounted by a brass pineapple finial a gadrooned pediment and standing on four brass ball feet. Note: John Moore was apprenticed to John Thwaites in Clerkenwell. They were very successful Clockmakers and also specialised in Turret Clocks. They also exhibited at the Great Exhibition in 1851.
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.
Read next:Verge escapement
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