Clocks · Longcase clock
Grandfather Clock by Spencer & Perkins, 1770
- Maker / attribution
- Spencer & Perkins (maker)
- Date
- 1770
- Historical period
- Precision & Scientific Horology (1750 – 1850)
- Country of origin
- Unrecorded in source
- Object type
- Longcase clock
- Stock no.
- 587
- Credit line
- Dealer listing, Pendulum of Mayfair (587)
- Catalogue title (original)
- Antique Grandfather Clock by Spencer & Perkins 1770 (English)
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Record summary
Catalogued by Pendulum of Mayfair (dealer), London (stock number 587), this is a longcase clock by Spencer & Perkins, dated 1770. The Atlas places it in the Precision & Scientific Horology period (1750 – 1850) of its Clocks collection. The record is illustrated with 5 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 — Pendulum of Mayfair
A highly collectable ‘8-day’ flame mahogany veneered grandfather clock. All showing the typical high quality London case features of the time by Spencer & Perkins. This clock has spent its entire life I believe in Portugal in Lisbon. It has also been exhibited in Lisbon. This was to commemorate a famous battle in portugese history where the English helped decide the outcome. The dial with two circular painted discs for the dial centre. Together with strike silent to the arch. Spandrels to the dial corners and to the arch as well. Subsidiary seconds and calendar. The movement striking the hours on a single bell. What looks like the original transport piece of wood behind the movement. This would of been used when it was sent to Portugal. A very rare clock. Antique Grandfather Clocks
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
Longcase (tall-case or grandfather) clocks
The longcase clock was born from two seventeenth-century innovations: Christiaan Huygens's pendulum (1656–57) and the anchor escapement (c. 1670). A long seconds pendulum, nearly a metre long, swings with a small arc, and enclosing it together with the driving weights in a tall wooden case protected the mechanism and created a new piece of furniture. London makers such as Ahasuerus Fromanteel, Thomas Tompion and Joseph Knibb set the pattern.
By the eighteenth century longcase clocks were made throughout Britain, the Netherlands, Scandinavia (the Swedish Mora clock), France (the Comtoise from the Franche-Comté), Germany and colonial America. Eight-day movements with two weights became standard in better clocks; thirty-hour clocks with one weight and a rope or chain were cheaper alternatives.
What to look for
- Winding holes in the dial: two (eight-day, going and striking) or none (thirty-hour, pulled up by a chain).
- Brass dials with applied chapter rings (earlier) versus painted iron 'white' dials (after c. 1770 in Britain).
- Moon-phase arches, date apertures, seconds dials and maker's name on the dial.
- Case woods and style: ebonised, walnut marquetry, lacquer, oak or mahogany; regional styles from London, Lancashire, Scotland or America.
- Whether the movement and dial match the case — 'marriages' are common.
Dating clues
- Square brass dials suggest c. 1670–1720; arched brass dials c. 1715–1790.
- Painted (white) dials were made by Birmingham dial-makers from about 1772.
- Comtoise clocks with repoussé pendulums are mostly nineteenth 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.
Read next:Anchor (recoil) escapementDeadbeat escapementAnchor escapement
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