48,300 CHF
Thomas Tompion, London, No. 73, case by William Sherwood, hallmarked 1696.Very fine, rare and important, 22 ct. gold, pair-cased two-train hour-striking clock watch. 36.1 mm o, gilt brass full plate, pierced tulip pillars, fusee and chain for the going train, verge escapement, plain steel three-arm faceted balance, blued-steel balance spring, single-footed gilt cock with streamers, pierced and engraved with asymmetricascrolling foliage, worm and wheel set-up, rack and pinion regulator with silver plate, striking from a fixed barrel with the visible part pierced and engraved, five-wheel train, the last pinion set in eccentric, adjustable bushing for speed regulation, silver count wheel on the back plate.Signed on the dial and the back plate, numbered on the back plate, on the outside of the inner case behind the pendant and inside behind the bell.Diam. 53.7 mm. Published in the Sandberg book, pages 112-113. Notes Tompion, Thomas (1637-1713)became a brother of the Clockmakers' Company in 1671, and in 1674 moved to premises in Water Lane, where he conducted business for the rest of his life. That same year he met Robert Hooke, who sought his help in proving that his invention of the balance spring was prior to Huygens'. This brought Tompion to the notice of Charles II and he rapidly rose to a pre-eminent position. He made the first clock for the Greenwich Observatory in 1676. In 1695, Tompion collaborated with Booth and Houghton inatenting an escapement with a horizontal Read more…
Auctioneer:
Antiquorum
Date:
2001-03-31
