Height

6 foot 5 inches.

Case

The purpose-made case with ebonised fruitwood veneers on oak, the hood with caddy top and brass finials above a break-arch hood door. The concave throat moulding above the rectangular trunk door inlaid with raised D-ended panel. The plain plinth with double skirted foot.

Dial

The 7¾ by 10⅞ inch break-arch gilt-brass dial with four latched dial feet. Mask-and- foliate-scroll spandrels, silvered chapter with Roman hours, lozenge half-hour marks and Arabic minutes. Finely matted centre with calendar aperture below XII, the arch with equation indication sector flanked by typical cherub and eagle spandrels, signed below Da: Delander on a silvered shaped rectangular plaque.

Movement

The 5 by 6¼ inch brass movement plates with six latched, finned, and ringed baluster pillars. The anchor recoil escapement (formerly Delander’s duplex) with brass-rod pendulum with calibrated rating nut and massive brass-cased weight. The under dial motionwork, firstly to the date-wheel and calendar ring, then onwards driving a star wheel for the equation to the arch.

Duration

Year.

Provenance

The Wetherfield Collection;
Bonhams, London, 17 June 2008, lot 120;
The Tom Scott Collection, inventory no.17.

Literature

FJ Britten, Old English Clocks. The Wetherfield Collection, London, 1907, p. 89, fig. 110;
WE Hurcomb, The Wetherfield Collection of 222 Clocks, London, 1928, p. 19;
Garnier & Carter, The Golden Age of English Horology, 2015, pp. 228-231.

Notes

Being one of only two miniature year-duration longcase clocks by Delander, its importance was recognised by Tom Scott senior who was unable to live with the previous late Victorian mahogany case, which is recorded in a number of publications.

The commissioning of this case was intended to near-match the other surviving example but, to differentiate between the two, veneered with ebonised fruitwood.