French small tortoiseshell and 9ct gold mounted miniature carriage clock timepiece, hallmarked London 1903

Record summary

Catalogued by Gardiner Houlgate (auction house), Corsham (lot Sale 35, lot 1268), this is a carriage clock, made in France, dated 1903 (hallmarked London). The Atlas places it in the Golden Age of Mechanical Watchmaking period (1900 – 1945) of its Clocks collection. Materials and techniques recorded by the source: 9ct gold, tortoiseshell. Recorded dimensions: Height 4.25 in (11 cm). The record is illustrated with 1 photograph.

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

Atlas type guide

Carriage and travel clocks

The carriage clock is a portable spring clock with a balance-wheel escapement and a brass case with glass panels and a carrying handle. Abraham-Louis Breguet made early examples around 1800, and from the 1830s Paul Garnier and other French makers industrialised production, with the small towns of Saint-Nicolas-d'Aliermont and the Franche-Comté supplying movements for retailers worldwide.

Typical features include a platform escapement mounted horizontally on top of the movement (usually a lever, sometimes cylinder or Garnier's chaff-cutter), striking or repeating work, and alarms. English carriage clocks, generally larger and with fusees, were made by firms such as Frodsham and Dent. Travel clocks in folding leather cases became popular in the twentieth century.

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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