Clocks

£16,500 clock adds to the maker’s – and seller’s reputation: THE Dent family of clockmakers have achieved lasting fame as the builders of the clock mechanism for St Stephen’s Tower – known to tourists worldwide as Big Ben. But it was not just on the grand scale that they excelled.

UK: AN educational charity in Derbyshire is offering a substantial reward for information leading to the safe return of the mechanism and dial of a longcase clock.

TIME waits for no man, the saying goes, and clients of Abraham-Louis Bréguet were certainly reminded of this fact when paying their monthly instalments to the Swiss-born watchmaker for Souscription pocket watches like this example right which featured at Woolley & Wallis’s sale on January 29.

A £42,500 grant from the National Art Collections Fund (Art Fund), the UK’s largest independent art charity, has helped the National Museums and Galleries on Merseyside acquire an English astronomical table clock (1787) by Thomas Barry (1756-c.1820).

A Birmingham man who gave up a career as a local government officer to devote himself to clockmaking has won a £4000 scholarship to study antique clock restoration.

Clocks, Watches and Wristwatches: There was a solid performance for the 288 lots of Clocks, Watches and Wristwatches offered by Sotheby’s Olympia (17.5/10% buyer’s premium) on September 19 marred only by the failure of the potential best seller, the 18th century English musical and automaton clock attributed to James Cox, London.c.1775.

LATE, but interesting news arrives from Northumberland in the form of this 18th century bracket clock, right, by Horseman and Quare, which emerged from a Northumbrian farmhouse to be the star of the sale held by Jim Railton (15% buyer’s premium) at Newcastle Racecourse on July 13.

WITH a 96 per cent success rate after the June 13 sale, Bristol’s Clevedon Salerooms (15% buyer’s premium) seem to have convinced vendors of the realities of the market which means not everything makes its estimate.

FRANCE: THE Louis XVI pyramid clock, 2ft 1in (63cm) and confidently attributed to bronzier François Vion, soared to a double-estimate €200,000 (£129,000), despite the fact that the escapement and pendulum suspension had been replaced, at De Nicolaÿ (15/10% buyer’s premium) on June 26.

Following hot on the heals of a gold cased pocket watch which took £25,000 Sherborne auctioneers Charterhouse (15% buyer’s premium) found further horological success on May 31 with this early 19th century carriage clock, right.

MAJOR players from the English and Continental clock trade travelled to Dublin on May 1 for the sale of this important and rare 19th century ormolu-cased French automaton clock, right, at O’Reilly’s (15% buyer’s premium).

Rising above all else at the Chichester sales held by Strides (15% buyer’s premium) on April 26 was this 9ft (2.74m) high, c.1800 mahogany longcase clock, right. In a market where decorative clocks are selling better than ever, this piece by Hardeman and Son of Bridge was a timely reminder that large, plain clocks can still do very well if they have an unusual movement.

Echoing encouraging sentiments of provincial auctioneers across the UK, Bristol Auction Rooms specialist David Rees felt “the trade were more comfortable buying for stock” at his March sale than in previous months, adding: “It was the best sale we’ve had since November.”

KEN PAUL COLLECTION: This bizarre late-19th century mahogany longcase timepiece, right fashioned as a coffin and containing a human skeleton, was the most extraordinary offering in what was itself a highly unusual sale held by Sotheby’s (20/15/10% buyer’s premium) in Bond Street from March 13-15.

THE auctioneers’ decision to place the first half of a sizeable consignment of furniture from a North Oxfordshire house in Mallams January sale paid dividends when the 87 lots provided half of the £130,000 total of the 277-lot sale.

CONTINUING the tradition of the old Phillips network, the Sevenoaks branch of new owners Bonhams moved to Ramster, the Surrey stately home for a winter event offering some of the better pieces consigned to the company’s various rooms in the South East.

There were two horological offerings last month at Christie’s South Kensington (17.5/10% buyer’s premium). The auctioneers kicked off on October 3 with a mid-range clocks and barometer selection then followed it up on the 10th with a grander offering styled as Important Watches.

THE trade’s fears that the events of September 11 would usher in the long expected recession with a collapse in international bidding were allayed here in Herefordshire at Brightwells on 12-13 September.

FEW clocks can claim to be as rare as this example, pictured right, which is being offered for sale at Sworders of Stansted Mountfitchet in Essex on October 23. The rarity is based in part on the maker’s misfortune.

Sotheby’s 236-lot Clocks, Watches and Barometers sale was the largest of the three held on September 20. Timed to capitalise on the recent opening of the Olympia saleroom, it brought £417,645 and was 73 per cent taken up by lot. This small olivewood marquetry longcase clock, c.1680, 7ft 6in (2.15m), by Joseph Knibb, stole the limelight.