Clocks · Longcase clock
Longcase clock by Bartley & Eggert
- Maker / attribution
- Bartley & Eggert (maker)
- Date
- c. 1810
- Historical period
- Precision & Scientific Horology (1750 – 1850)
- Country of origin
- Unrecorded in source
- Object type
- Longcase clock
- Materials / technique
- mahogany; brass; glass
- Dimensions
- Overall: 2120 x 480 x 245 mm
- Holding institution
- Royal Museums Greenwich
- Accession / object no.
- AAA3524
- Credit line
- National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London
- Catalogue title (original)
- Longcase clock (English)
View the source record ↗ (opens another website in a new tab)Suggest a correction
Record summary
Held and catalogued by Royal Museums Greenwich (object number AAA3524), this is a longcase clock by Bartley & Eggert, dated c. 1810. The Atlas places it in the Precision & Scientific Horology period (1750 – 1850) of its Clocks collection. Materials and techniques recorded by the source: mahogany; brass; glass. Recorded dimensions: Overall: 2120 x 480 x 245 mm. 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
Catalogue description — Royal Museums Greenwich
An eight-day bell-striking mahogany Nelson commemorative longcase clock with automata by Bartley & Eggert, Bristol, circa 1810. The weight-driven movement has rectangular brass plates which are united by four knopped pillars. The going train has an anchor escapement and seconds beating pendulum. The striking train employs a rack system with snail mounted to the hour wheel. The thirteen-inch break arched dial has Arabic numerals and outer fifteen minute markings. The corners have gilt conch shell and seaweed decoration enclosed within a fancy border, the centre of the dial has a patriotic depiction of Admiral Lord Nelson standing upon a French tricolour, in the background are a fleet of battle ships at anchor. The arch is painted with a harbour scene with shaped aperture revealing the rocking ship automata. The dial is pinned to the movement via an iron falseplate which is signed Kempson & Felton, Birmingham. The boxwood strung case has a scroll pediment over freestanding reeded mahogany columns with brass Corinthian capitals flanking the glazed door with serpentine inner edge. The trunk has canted corners and a rectangular door over a square base with moulded and skirted plinth. The serpentine edging to the hood door is a feature typical to Bristol made clocks of the late 18th century through to the early 19th century. The corner decoration on the dial is clearly in a different hand from the centre and arch decoration. The centre image looks to be taken loosely from a painting by Lemuel Abbot (PAD4131) showing Nelson wearing the star and ribbon of the Order of the Bath (awarded 27 May 1797) and St. Vincent medal. Mark Bartley & Dominic Eggert, both came from Hosskirch, Baden Wurtemburg in Germany and are recorded as working together at Nicholas Street, Bristol from 1810 to 1814, when Eggert emigrated to America where he worked for the Demilt company as a clock and chronometer maker. Mark Bartley remained in Bristol and is recorded as working from various addresses.
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:Deadbeat 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