Clocks · Clock
Federal Mahogany Pillar and Scroll Shelf Clock, Eli Terry & Sons, c. 1823
- Maker / attribution
- Unrecorded in source
- Date
- c. 1823
- Historical period
- Precision & Scientific Horology (1750 – 1850)
- Country of origin
- Unrecorded in source
- Object type
- Clock
- Materials / technique
- mahogany, walnut
- Auction house
- LiveAuctioneers auction archive
- Lot
- Item 190739453
- Credit line
- Auction lot record: lot 248, Locati, LLC November 17, 2024 Sale, Locati, LLC (2024), via LiveAuctioneers
- Catalogue title (original)
- Federal Mahogany Pillar and Scroll Shelf Clock; Eli Terry & Sons (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 190739453), this is a clock, dated c. 1823. The Atlas places it in the Precision & Scientific Horology period (1750 – 1850) of its Clocks collection. Materials and techniques recorded by the source: mahogany, walnut. 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 — Locati, LLC
A Federal Walnut Inlaid Mahogany Pillar and Scroll Shelf Clock, Eli Terry & Sons, Plymouth Connecticut, Circa 1823-1831. The twelve and a half inch white-painted dial with Arabic numerals, with wooden works movement, the twin train movement striking on a bell. The hinged door with reverse painted glass tablet depicting George Washington's Mount Vernon Plantation. With applied E. Terry & Sons paper label to the interior of case inscribed "PATENT CLOCKS, / INVENTED BY / ELI TERRY. / MADE AND SOLD AT PLYMOUTH, CONNECTICUT. / BY / E. TERRY & SONS. / WARRANTED IF WELL USED." Dimensions: Height 31 1/4in; width 17 1/4in; depth 4 1/2in. Provenance: Purchased with C.L. Pricket, Yardley, Pennsylvania. Property from a New Jersey Estate.
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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