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Circa 1682
Sold
13½ inches high
A rare pre-numbered phase I ebony table timepiece with quarter repeat. CASE The case is surmounted by a fine quality gilt-brass foliate-tied handle above the domed top which is applied with well-cast and chased gilt-brass mounts. The sides have glazed panels beneath pierced ebony sound frets. The front door has a typical Tompion foliate-cast gilt-brass sound fret to the top rail and escutcheons to the side rails. The inside of the front door is pasted with an Iden label printed IDEN COLLECTION INVENTORY No. 1940 TOMPION. The moulded base rests on block feet and is pasted with a further IDEN COLLECTION label. DIAL The 6½ inch square gilt-brass latched dial is signed Tho: Tompion Londini Fecit beneath the silvered chapter ring with Roman and Arabic chapters and finely pierced blued steel hands. The corners are applied with finely chased winged cherub spandrels. MOVEMENT The substantial timepiece movement has typically thick brass plates with six ring-turned and latched pillars. Single gut fusee and spring barrel, knife-edge verge escapement with calibrated bob pendulum. The slide repeat system operates from either side and strikes the hours on a later bell and the quarter on a smaller bell. The backplate is engraved with tulip heads and flowers within foliage and is signed Tho = Tompion Londini Fecit within a rectangular frame. PROVENANCE • The collection of the late Walter Iden Esq. • Purchased by Asprey, London • Private collection U.S.A. A particularly interesting feature about this fine timepiece is the fact that the repeat levers are between the plates. Tompion favoured the slide repeat on his earlier timepieces; just eight of Tompion’s table timepieces, using the same slide repeat system, are known to have survived. From about 1680 Tompion experimented to find a satisfactory repeat system that was both practical and aesthically pleasing. The slide repeat was possibly an attempt to hide the repeat levers and give greater emphasis to the backplate engraving. However, by about 1687 he favoured the cocked lever system which initially used a single cock and post (see Tompion No. 51) and finally engraved double cocks with interlinked repeat levers. LITERATURE • Percy G. Dawson, The Iden Clock Collection, Woodbridge, 1987, pp. 86 & 87 • Antiquarian Horology, vol. XVIII, September 1974 • Jeremy Evans, Thomas Tompion at the Dial and Three Crowns, A.H.S., 2006, p. 69