The Spanish Tompion, No 381, Circa 1702 4 a royal turtleshell full Grande Sonnerie bracket clock D
"A highly important Queen Anne turtleshell and gilt-brass three-train full Grande Sonnerie striking verge bracket clock with days of the week and calendar, of royal provenance and historical significance by Thomas Tompion, London. #Antique
Height: 321⁄4 inches (819 mm).
Case: Case design, attributed to Daniel Marot (1661-1752), of breakarch form with oak carcass veneered in turtleshell, the ogee caddy top surmounted by a gilt-brass figure of Apollo on a short pedestal with satyr mask above gilt-brass moulding with pierced gilt foliate ‘stomacher’ drape beneath, flanked by four multi-piece gilt-brass gadrooned finials on short pedestals above a gilt-metal foliate frieze with cherubs interrupted at the front by the gilt-brass break-arch, sides with pierced gilt foliate panels, the chamfered angles with gilt-brass caryatid volutes and acanthus angle volutes beneath, on gilt-brass moulded base with gadrooned feet.
Dial: 73⁄4 by 111⁄2 inch (197 by 292 mm) breakarch dial signed Tho Tompion LONDINI Fecit, gilt matted centre with mock pendulum aperture, double-screwed female Minerva mask & foliage spandrels, standard silvered chapter ring, with paired subsidiary dials for pendulum regulation on the left, strike selection on the right, engraved Son.6/Sil.6/Son.1/Sil.1, a sectoral aperture in the arch displaying the day of the week in Spanish with appropriate deity and the date of the month aperture above.
Duration: 8 days.
Movement: The superb triple fusee full Grande Sonnerie movement with seven latched finned baluster pillars, pendulum spring-suspended from brass regulation bar, quarters able to strike on one or six bells, hours on a further bell. Trip quarter repeat via blued-steel interconnecting levers on the foliate engraved backplate (engraver: G.195) signed Tho Tompion LONDINI Fecit within a wheatear cartouche beneath a basket of flowers and over a pedestal, punch-numbered 381 at the base of both plates.
Escapement: Pivoted verge with spring-suspended lenticular pendulum.
Strike Type: Three-train full Grande Sonnerie with trip repeat.
Provenance:
• Probably commissioned by Prince George of Denmark for presentation by his wife, Queen Anne of Great Britain, to Archduke Charles von Habsburg (1685-1740), the Grand Alliance’s pretender to the Spanish throne during the War of Spanish Succession (Marlborough’s war).
The Time Museum, Rockford, Illinois, USA, inventory no.1161.
• Sotheby’s New York, 2 December 1999, lot 81, sold for $2,092,500.
Exhibited:
• 1980s to 1999, The Time Museum Rockford, Illinois.
• 2003, Horological Masterworks, Oxford Museum for the History of Science and the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, exhibit no.50.
• 2004, Huygens’ Legacy, Paleis Het Loo, Holland, exhibit no.87.
• 2013, Time for Everyone Symposium, Pasadena and Columbia, USA.
• 2014, Corpus Christi, Cambridge.
• 2014, Worshipful Company of Clockmakers, Guildhall Library.
• 2018, Innovation & Collaboration, London, exhibit no.112.
Literature:
• Horological Masterworks, 2003, p.220-225.
• Huygens’ Legacy, The Golden Age of the pendulum clock, 2004, p.252-255.
• J L Evans, Thomas Tompion at the Dial and Three Crowns, 2006, listed p.78; Evans, Carter & Wright, Thomas Tompion 300 Years, 2013, p.396-399; Garnier & Hollis, Innovation & Collaboration, p.362-365.
This clock is the first in a group of four Grande Sonnerie spring clocks in turtleshell cases with gilt mounts; the others being the Hanover, no.417, the Portland, no.422 and the Conyngham, no.436. Each case is veneered only to the front and sides, while their flat backs are painted to match in faux turtleshell, suggesting each was made with a matching bracket for fixing to the wall. The last in the group, no.436, remained in the Royal Collection until removed as a perquisite on the death of William IV in 1837 and, while none of the wall brackets are currently known to survive, in 1794 Vulliamy had charged (in relation to no.436) For mending the Bracket & Gildg it with burnishd Gold, confirming its survival at that date.
The bell selection and days of the week subsidiaries are engraved in Spanish and Tompion’s serial number, 381, suggests a start date of c.1702, so when rediscovered in the 1980s, this clock was thought to have been made for Philip V of Spain. However, England was already in conflict with Spain in the War of the Spanish Succession and so the use of Spanish and a sale to a Spanish king, at this time unrecognised by England, seems initially incongruous."