Table clock with pull-quarter chiming repeat in ebonized case with basket top

Description — British Museum

Table clock with pull-quarter chiming repeat in ebonized case with basket top. Movement 8-day duration two train fusee movement with striking and pull-quarter chiming repeat. Verge escapement with short bob pendulum. Engraved back plate, not signed. Dial Gilded brass square dial plate with matting, dummy pendulum and date within the silvered brass chapter with ring. Dummy pendulum aperture is decorated. Four good cast brass putti spandrels. Blue steel relief hands. Strike-silent lever above chapter ring. Case Ebonized fruitwood veneer on oak carcass. Gilded repoussé brass basket top, side frets over glass and mounts on front door. Gilded brass feet.

Curator's comments — British Museum

Nicolas Paris was first recorded in Warwick in 1670 when he was paid for repair to St Mary's church clock and paid 2 shillings for his seat in the church 'for a place in a little seate joyning to the pillar where the pulpit standeth'. He paid hearth tax in 1670,1671.1673,1674 His relative Samuel Paris (possibly his brother) is recorded in Warwick from 1674, and Samuel also repaired local turret clocks. Samuel outlived Nicolas and died three years later in 1719. Between 1684 and 1703 Nicolas Paris charged Thomas Leigh, 2nd Baron of Stoneleigh Abbey, Warwickshire. 'For Keeping the clock in order' 10 shillings. Nicolas and his wife Mary had six children; three sons Nicholas, born 1681. John born 1685 and Thomas born 1688 survived childhood and assisted with the family business. In 1704 Nicolas Paris occupied seats in St Mary's Church in the 11th pew of the middle aisle and in 1711 'seats for life in 9th pew on north side of middle aisle' In 1684 Nicolas and Samuel both became freeman of the Blacksmiths of Warwick. There is a London-styke lantern clock, circa 1675 and an eight day longcase clock signed by Nicolas Paris in Warwick Market Hall Museum.Paris would have bought the clock castings from London and then assembled, finished and engraved his name as supplier in his Warwick workshops. The museum also acquired in 1981 two firearms signed 'Nicolas Paris of Warwick': a six-barrelled flintlock gun, circa 1690 and a breech-loading flintlock sporting gun circa 1700 For an account of the Paris family see W.A.Seaby, Curator of the Warwick Museum, The Paris Family of Warwick, 1981 Bill Seaby quotes regular payments to Nicolas Paris for repairs to turret clocks, household clocks, guns, locks, keys, water pumps, fire engines, the chancel screen of St Mary's, the railings to the Leicester tomb, iron gates at Stoneleigh (which still exist), bells, gilding of the1450 Richard Beauchamp monument and enamelling. In the correspondence with his patron Sir Richard Dugdale, Nicolas Paris points out that he has been seriously ill, on more than one occasion from the poisonous vapours given off in the gilding process which used a mercury amalgam. 'It hath cost me allmost my life twise about the doing of it as the Doctors will aferme, and it hath cost me more money out of pocket than I have received' https:///www.brianloomes.com/collecting/paris/index.html Collecting Antique Clocks: Nicolas Paris of Warwick and his lantern clocks. Saunders, 2005, pp.323-5.