Clocks · Clock
Rosewood timepiece ‘English five glass’ library clock
- Maker / attribution
- Unrecorded in source
- Date
- c. 1835
- Historical period
- Precision & Scientific Horology (1750 – 1850)
- Country of origin
- England
- Object type
- Clock
- Dimensions
- Height 23.5 cm
- Stock no.
- Product 2989
- Credit line
- Dealer listing, The Antique Clock Company (product 2989)
- Catalogue title (original)
- A SMALL ROSEWOOD TIMEPIECE ‘ENGLISH FIVE GLASS’ LIBRARY CLOCK (English)
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Record summary
Catalogued by The Antique Clock Company (dealer), Dorset (stock number Product 2989), this is a clock, made in England, dated c. 1835. The Atlas places it in the Precision & Scientific Horology period (1750 – 1850) of its Clocks collection. Recorded dimensions: Height 23.5 cm. 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
Dealer description — The Antique Clock Company
The small and stunning English carriage timepiece by a remarkable clockmaker. This high-quality single-chain fusee movement with Harrisons maintaining power, jewelled oversized English lever platform escapement and monometallic balance, with the back plate also engraved ‘Molyneux 42 Lombard Street London’. The small rosewood case has a large bevelled glass escapement observation window to the top, framed by a stepped top and rippled corniche over glazed sides, supported on a large moulded base with adjustable brass feet. The 3 ¾” brass engine turned dial featuring engraved Roman numerals and signed ‘Molyneux 42 Lombard St London’, with the original finely cut blued steel moon hands and brass sight ring. Robert Molyneux; a fine maker, was apprenticed to Thomas Earnshaw. Molyneux specialised in making escapements at first and supplied well-known firms. In 1805, Molyneux was asked to comment on chronometers submitted to the Board of Longitude by Thomas Earnshaw and John Arnold. Height: 9 ¼” or 23.5 cm Width: 6 ¼” or 15.5 cm Depth: 5 ½” or 14 cm (Pictures taken pre-restoration)
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
Domestic clocks
A clock combines four systems: a source of power (falling weight, coiled spring, or later electricity), a gear train that divides time, an escapement and oscillator that regulate it (foliot, pendulum or balance), and an indicating system of dial and hands or a bell. Its history runs from the large iron weight-driven clocks of the late thirteenth century to Renaissance spring-driven table clocks, the pendulum revolution of 1656, the factory clocks of the nineteenth century and electric and quartz clocks of the twentieth.
Domestic clocks also reflect regional furniture and decorative traditions — English longcase and bracket clocks, French pendules, Viennese regulators, Black Forest and American shelf clocks — and therefore record changing tastes as much as technical progress.
What to look for
- How the clock is powered: weights, spring barrel, fusee, electric coil.
- The oscillator: foliot, short pendulum, long seconds pendulum or balance.
- Whether it strikes: hour only (count wheel) or hours and quarters (rack striking).
- The maker or retailer's name on dial and movement, and any factory trademarks.
- Signs of alteration — replaced dials, converted escapements, 'married' cases.
Dating clues
- Before 1656 clocks used foliots or balances; after, most domestic clocks have pendulums.
- Anchor escapements spread after c. 1670; minute hands became common at the same time.
- Factory production in America and Germany transformed prices after c. 1840.
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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