Clocks · Clock
John Hancock, Yeovil Inlaid Tall case Clock, c. 1773
- Maker / attribution
- Unrecorded in source
- Date
- c. 1773
- Historical period
- Precision & Scientific Horology (1750 – 1850)
- Country of origin
- Unrecorded in source
- Object type
- Clock
- Materials / technique
- brass, copper
- Auction house
- LiveAuctioneers auction archive
- Lot
- Item 55898064
- Credit line
- Auction lot record: lot 53, THE TOM SPITTLER COLLECTION, Forsythes' Auctions, LLC (2017), via LiveAuctioneers
- Catalogue title (original)
- John Hancock, Yeovil Inlaid Tall case Clock (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 55898064), this is a clock, dated c. 1773. The Atlas places it in the Precision & Scientific Horology period (1750 – 1850) of its Clocks collection. Materials and techniques recorded by the source: brass, copper. The record is illustrated with 2 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 — Forsythes' Auctions, LLC
Circa 1773, Yeovil a town in South Somerset, England. Engraved brass dial with Roman numerals, lunette with unusual automaton of a copper hawk in flight that moves across and back of lunette with engraved text above reading BEWARE OF THE HAWK. Engraved floral scrolls in spandrels, seconds dial above and calendar aperture below center, original cut steel hands engraved signature and town as above on face. Brass weight driven English bell strike movement with automation, original weights and pendulum. Mahogany case with broken arched top with turned rosette terminals and central plinth cap, with banded string inlay below, tombstone door with brass pull, flanked by full square tapered reeded columns with cast brass capitals and plinths. Waist with overlapping door with cross banding and string inlay, thumb molded edge, flanking chamfered corners with lambs tongue terminals, cove molding above and ogee below. Base with cross banding and string inlay and flared French feet, pine secondary wood, 17 3/4 x 10 3/4 x 80 1/4" high.
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
Related records
Clocks · c. 1780
Longcase clock by Louis George, Eberswalde, c. 1780
Museum Eberswalde
Clocks · 1780s (inferred: the museum dates the style to the 1780s and the music includes Gluck's Iphigénie en Tauride of 1779)
Musical longcase clock, Roentgen workshop, Neuwied, 1780s
Badisches Landesmuseum Karlsruhe
Clocks · 1740–1760
Longcase clock, English, 1740–1760, japanned wood, John Ellicott
Victoria and Albert Museum, London
Clocks · 1740–60
Tall clock by Samuel Bagnall, United States, 1740–60
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Clocks · c.1750
Long-case clock, English, ca. 1750, by Richard Peyton of Gloucester
Victoria and Albert Museum, London
Clocks · 1750–1800
Bracket clock in metal case with scroll handles and flamed-shaped top signed by Pierre Seignoret, Clockmaket to the the Comte d'Artois
Victoria and Albert Museum, London
Clocks · c. 1750
Clock by Georg Gfell, Germany, c. 1750
German Clock Museum
Clocks · 1750–1799
Cuckoo / black forest clock, Germany, 1750–1799
Badisches Landesmuseum Karlsruhe