Clocks · Longcase clock
Moonphase longcase clock by Robert Moxham, Coleford
- Maker / attribution
- Robert Moxham (maker)
- Date
- c. 1790
- Historical period
- Precision & Scientific Horology (1750 – 1850)
- Country of origin
- Unrecorded in source
- Place
- Coleford
- Object type
- Longcase clock
- Dimensions
- Height 224 cm
- Stock no.
- Product 319
- Credit line
- Dealer listing, The Antique Clock Company (product 319)
- Catalogue title (original)
- ROBERT MOXHAM OF COLEFORD, MOONPHASE LONGCASE CLOCK (English)
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Record summary
Catalogued by The Antique Clock Company (dealer), Dorset (stock number Product 319), this is a longcase clock by Robert Moxham, made in Coleford, dated c. 1790. The Atlas places it in the Precision & Scientific Horology period (1750 – 1850) of its Clocks collection. Recorded dimensions: Height 224 cm. 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
Dealer description — The Antique Clock Company
A slim and very attractive 8 day Moonphase Longcase clock by Robert Moxham of Coleford (Gloucestershire). This good quality, conventional anchor escapement movement striking the hours on a bell. Pretty, early painted 12″dial with seconds, calendar & moonphase. Blued steel hands. The mahogany case is particularly well proportioned, has lovely grain and colour and fan inlay to the corners & centre of the door and base which stands on nice cabriole feet. Height: 88″ or 224cm
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
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