Clocks · Bracket clock
Regency brass mounted mahogany verge striking bracket clock
- Maker / attribution
- Unrecorded in source
- Date
- c. 1800
- Historical period
- Precision & Scientific Horology (1750 – 1850)
- Country of origin
- Unrecorded in source
- Object type
- Bracket clock
- Materials / technique
- brass, mahogany
- Dimensions
- Height 40.5 cm
- Stock no.
- Product 2825
- Credit line
- Dealer listing, The Antique Clock Company (product 2825)
- Catalogue title (original)
- A FINE REGENCY BRASS MOUNTED MAHOGANY VERGE STRIKING BRACKET CLOCK (English)
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Record summary
Catalogued by The Antique Clock Company (dealer), Dorset (stock number Product 2825), this is a bracket clock, dated c. 1800. 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. Recorded dimensions: Height 40.5 cm. The record is illustrated with 3 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
The robust five-pillar twin fusee bell striking movement with original verge escapement is regulated by a short bob pendulum. The backplate is beautifully engraved with a basket-of-fruit and symmetrical foliate scrolls. The 8-inch circular painted Roman numeral dial signed Thwaites & Reed, London to the centre with finely cut gilt spade hands, the upper margin of the dial surround with strike/silent selection. The break-arch case with hinged brass carrying handle to the brass-fillet moulded single pad top panel over the complex moulded cornice, the hinged front panel fitted with convex glazed ogee cast brass bezel, over brass fish scale lower quadrant frets flanked by brass edged front angles. The sides with conforming arched brass frets, and the rear with break-arch door set within the frame of the case on a cavetto moulded skirt base with brass ogee bracket feet. Height: 16″ or 40.5cm (Handle down)
Provenance
Private collection – U.K.
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.
Read next:Anchor (recoil) escapement
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