James Vigne, London

Circa 1785

Sold

15 ½ inches high

A fine brass-lined mahogany striking table clock with triple pad top. Case The excellent quality and well-proportioned case has brass-lined rectangular pads to the break arch top surmounted by a brass handle, fish scale sound frets to the sides, the brass-bound base is raised on bracket feet. Dial The silvered engraved dial is signed Vigne London within the Roman and Arabic chapter ring with blued steel hands and calendar aperture, strike/silent lever and pendulum regulation dial in the arch. Movement The top quality 5 pillar movement has twin spring barrels and fusee with gut lines, hour strike on a bell, the going train with pivoted verge escapement with the pendulum spring-suspended from the pendulum regulation bar above the movement plates. The backplate is neatly signed Vigne London within a floral engraved garland above the well-made folding pendulum securing device; brass brackets securing the movement to the case. James Vigne was actively making clocks in the Strand, London between 1781 and 1790. There are a few other clocks signed J & F Vigne; the F possibly his father Ferdinando. This very fine quality clock is identical to other table clocks signed by Vulliamy of Pall Mall and by Matthew & Thomas Dutton of Fleet Street, London; the exceptional quality ‘Fleet Street' case, movement double backcock, the rise and fall mechanism and the escapement are distinctive and identical to those by Vulliamy & the Dutton brothers. Given that they are all of the highest quality and all identical it begs the question who made them. It seems quite possible that Vigne was the maker of all of these clocks as so few signed Vigne exist today, he was only just down the street from the other makers and given very few of his signed clocks exist today, perhaps he was in fact a very fine jobbing clockmaker making clocks to be retailed by the top makers such as Vulliamy and the Duttons.