Clocks · Longcase clock
Longcase clock, France, c. 1775
- Maker / attribution
- Unrecorded in source
- Date
- c. 1775
- Historical period
- Precision & Scientific Horology (1750 – 1850)
- Country of origin
- France
- Place
- France
- Object type
- Longcase clock
- Materials / technique
- oak, brass (alloy), clock-making, carving, clock making, engraving, moulding
- Dimensions
- Height: 203.2 cm; Width: 57.1 cm; Depth: 30.5 cm; Weight: 8.00 kg (w.22:4 Lead weight 10/10/2025 NH)
- Holding institution
- Victoria and Albert Museum, London
- Accession / object no.
- W.22:1-1975
- Credit line
- Given by Mr. C. J. Thorpe.
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Record summary
Held and catalogued by Victoria and Albert Museum, London (object number W.22:1-1975), this is a longcase clock, made in France, dated c. 1775. The Atlas places it in the Precision & Scientific Horology period (1750 – 1850) of its Clocks collection. Materials and techniques recorded by the source: oak, brass (alloy), clock-making, carving, clock making, engraving, moulding. Recorded dimensions: Height: 203.2 cm; Width: 57.1 cm; Depth: 30.5 cm; Weight: 8.00 kg (w.22:4 Lead weight 10/10/2025 NH). 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
Summary — Victoria and Albert Museum
The posted movement has two trains. The bell-hammer lifts to engage the upper bell at the hour and the lower bell at the half-hour, and the snail moves during the first quarter of each hour, so that the following hour is sounded on the higher pitched bell at the half-hours: a typical example of "Dutch striking". The name of the town of manufacture is difficult to distinguish but is thought to be Charleville, in the French Ardennes (from where Tardy lists no less than 16 names of clock makers) and the movement is indeed considered typical of Liege work or "de frontiere" (a style influenced by the Liege designs made in Artois and Picardy).
Physical description — Victoria and Albert Museum
Case of carved oak, the trunk with moulded panels in the sides, and concave mouldings below the deep cornice. The trunk door has three applied carvings of oak and acanthus leaves. The plinth is carved at the corners with asymetrical scrollwork. The hood has an arched and moulded cornice and a glazed dial door. The dial is brass with Roman numerals, and engraved with leafy scrolls
Brief description — Victoria and Albert Museum
Eight day longcase clock, , France, ca. 1775, carved oak, inscribed 'Domine, Charlevill'
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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