Clocks · Clock
Lehigh Valley, PA Pillar and Scroll Shelf Clock, c. 1830
- Maker / attribution
- Unrecorded in source
- Date
- c. 1830
- Historical period
- Precision & Scientific Horology (1750 – 1850)
- Country of origin
- Unrecorded in source
- Object type
- Clock
- Materials / technique
- brass, mahogany
- Auction house
- LiveAuctioneers auction archive
- Lot
- Item 43899072
- Credit line
- Auction lot record: lot 404, March Antique & Americana Auction, Conestoga Auction Company Division of Hess Auction Group (2016), via LiveAuctioneers
- Catalogue title (original)
- Lehigh Valley, PA Pillar and Scroll Shelf 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 43899072), this is a clock, dated c. 1830. The Atlas places it in the Precision & Scientific Horology period (1750 – 1850) of its Clocks collection. Materials and techniques recorded by the source: brass, mahogany. 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 — Conestoga Auction Company Division of Hess Auction Group
Rare Lehigh Valley Pennsylvania Cherry and Mahogany Veneer Pillar and Scroll Shelf Clock. Circa 1830, unsigned but attributed to Joseph Holtzinger. Brass and iron 30 hour weight driven movement with strike. The two piece pendulum with brass Moravian star is visible thru a panel in the lower tablet. Painted metal dial with roman numerals and four seasons spandrels, bottom tablet painted on sheet iron with figural design. Broken arch pediment with brass urn finials, mahogany veneer case and door, turned cherry columns and turned feet. For a similar example see "The American Clock" by William H. Distin and Robert Bishop, page 117, item 245. 31-1/2"h. x 17-3/8"w. x 5-5/8"d. Condition: Very good with minor loss to upper return molding, good running condition.
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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