About the Item

This is a beautiful antique late Victorian, marquetry, mahogany, 8 day, musical chiming longcase clock circa 1880 in date. It has an eight-day five pillar movement on an arch dial and chimes on 8 bells and a gong on each quarter hour. The clock also has a strike/silent as well as a Westminster/Whittington facility. The arched dial has a silvered chapter ring having Roman numerals with small Arabic numerals above and foliate divisions between the numerals. The centre of the dial is gilded and has a subsidiary seconds dial. The rest is gilded, the four corners are adorned with mask baroque spandrels and the arch incorporates the strike/silent facility. The hood has a beautiful cornice which is inlaid with decorative marquetry. The hood door is flanked by ormolu Corinthian columns with brass capitals. On either side of the hood are shaped panels with mahogany fretwork which allows the sound to attenuate. The case of the c lock is smothered with beautiful inlaid marquetry and crossbanded decoration, the work of a Victorian master craftsman. The beautifully inlaid door opens to reveal three weights and a brass pendulum. The five pillar eight day movement chimes the hours and quarters on eight bells, strikes the hour on a gong, and you can choose between Westminster and Whittington chimes. With working locks and key as well as the original winding key. Play the video below to hear the clock striking. Condition: In really excellent fully restored working condition, please see photos for confirmation. Dimensions in cm: Height 239 x Width 55 x Depth 32 Dimensions in inches: Height 7 feet, 10 inches x Width 1 foot, 10 inches x Depth 1 foot, 1 inch Flame Mahogany Thomas Sheraton - 18th century furniture designer, once characterized mahogany as "best suited to furniture where strength is demanded as well as a wood that works up easily, has a beautiful figure and polishes so well that it is an ornament to any room in which it may be placed." Matching his words to his work, Sheraton designed much mahogany furniture. The qualities that impressed Sheraton are particularly evident in a distinctive pattern of wood called "flame mahogany." The flame figure in the wood is revealed by slicing through the face of the branch at the point where it joins another element of the tree. The Westminster Quarters is the most common name for a melody used by a set of clock bells to chime on each quarter hour. The number of chime sets matches the number of quarter hours that have passed. It is also known as the Westminster Chimes, or the Cambridge Chimes from its place of origin, the church of St Mary the Great, Cambridge. This chime is traditionally, though without substantiation, believed to be a set of variations on the four notes that make up the fifth and sixth measures of "I know that my Redeemer liveth" from Handel's Messiah. This is why the chime is also played by the bells of the so-called 'Red Tower' in Halle, the native town of Handel. It was written in 1793 for a new clock in St Mary the Great, the University Church in Cambridge. There is some doubt over exactly who composed it: Revd Dr Joseph Jowett,Regius Professor of Civil Law, was given the job, but he was probably assisted by either Dr John Randall (1715–99), who was the Professor of Music from 1755, or his brilliant undergraduate pupil, William Crotch (1775-1847). In the mid-19th century the chime was adopted by the clock tower at the Palace of Westminster (where Big Ben hangs), whence its fame spread. It is now possibly the most commonly used chime for striking clocks. According to the church records of Trinity Episcopal Church (Williamsport, Pennsylvania), this chime sequence was incorporated into a tower clock mechanism by the E. Howard & Co., Boston, MA. The clock and chime in Trinity's steeple base was dedicated in December 1875. It holds the distinction of being the first tower clock in the United States to sound the Cambridge Quarters. Whittington chimes is the name of a clock chime melody, also called St. Mary's. The melody is usually the secondary chime selection for most chiming clocks, the first being the Westminster. It is also the one of the two clock chime melody that have multiple variation, the other being the Ave Maria chimes. Dick Whittington story The customary English theater story, adapted from the life of the real Richard Whittington, is that the young boy Dick Whittington was an unhappy apprentice running away from his master, and heard the tune ringing from the bell tower of the church of St. Mary le Bow in London in 1392. The penniless boy heard the bells seemingly saying to him "Turn again Dick Whittington". Dick returned to London upon hearing the bells where he went on to find his fortune and became the Lord Mayor of London four times. Whittington used the tune as a campaign song for his three returns to the office of mayor. A short version of the campaign song goes: 'Turn again Dick Whittington, Right Lord Mayor of London Town.' Marquetry is decorative artistry where pieces of material (such as wood, mother of pearl, pewter, brass silver or shell) of different colours are inserted into surface wood veneer to form intricate patterns such as scrolls or flowers. The technique of veneered marquetry had its inspiration in 16th century Florence. Marquetry elaborated upon Florentine techniques of inlaying solid marble slabs with designs formed of fitted marbles, jaspers and semi-precious stones. This work, called opere di commessi, has medieval parallels in Central Italian "Cosmati"-work of inlaid marble floors, altars and columns. The technique is known in English as pietra dura, for the "hardstones" used: onyx, jasper, cornelian, lapis lazuli and colored marbles. In Florence, the Chapel of the Medici at San Lorenzo is completely covered in a colored marble facing using this demanding jig-sawn technique. Techniques of wood marquetry were developed in Antwerp and other Flemish centers of luxury cabinet-making during the early 16th century. The craft was imported full-blown to France after the mid-seventeenth century, to create furniture of unprecedented luxury being made at the royal manufactory of the Gobelins, charged with providing furnishings to decorate Versailles and the other royal residences of Louis XIV. Early masters of French marquetry were the Fleming Pierre Golle and his son-in-law, André-Charles Boulle, who founded a dynasty of royal and Parisian cabinet-makers (ébénistes) and gave his name to a technique of marquetry employing shell and brass with pewter in arabesque or intricately foliate designs. Ormolu (from French 'or moulu', signifying ground or pounded gold) is an 18th-century English term for applying finely ground, high-carat gold in a mercury amalgam to an object of bronze.The mercury is driven off in a kiln leaving behind a gold-coloured veneer known as 'gilt bronze'. The manufacture of true ormolu employs a process known as mercury-gilding or fire-gilding, in which a solution of nitrate of mercury is applied to a piece of copper, brass, or bronze, followed by the application of an amalgam of gold and mercury. The item was then exposed to extreme heat until the mercury burned off and the gold remained, adhered to the metal object. No true ormolu was produced in France after around 1830 because legislation had outlawed the use of mercury. Therefore, other techniques were used instead but nothing surpasses the original mercury-firing ormolu method for sheer beauty and richness of colour. Electroplating is the most common modern technique. Ormolu techniques are essentially the same as those used on silver, to produce silver-gilt (also known as vermeil). Our reference: 06743

Dimensions:
Height: 94.1 in (239 cm)Width: 21.66 in (55 cm)Depth: 12.6 in (32 cm)
Place of Origin:
England
Period:
Late 19th Century
Date of Manufacture:
circa 1880
Condition:
Seller Location:
London, GB
Reference Number:
Seller: 067431stDibs: LU95063344112

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