Vulliamy, London. No. 651

Clockmaker: Vulliamy, London

A very fine and rare mahogany and ormolu mounted library timepiece. The round silvered dial with Roman numerals and the rare feature of day and date to the centre, signed Vulliamy, London. Blued steel moon hands and delicate gold hands for the calendar. The superb quality single chain fusee movement with half dead beat escapement, maintaining power and rise and fall regulation, signed on the backplate Vulliamy, London and numbered 651. Typical ebony rod pendulum.

The mahogany and ebony case with ormolu circular bezel cast as a serpent biting its tail with ormolu laurel wreathed eagle mount below.

Date circa 1818

Height 8 ins (20 cm)

Benjamin Lewis Vulliamy was clockmaker to King George III and to George, prince Regent, later King George IV. The clock's Roman eagle was originally created as a pair to one that was supplied to Vulliamy by the Parisian fondeur P.M Delafontaine. The mounts were for an inkstand purchased from Vulliamy by the Prince of Wales for the vast sum of 105 guineas on 25th April 1810. The Vulliamy work books show that Delafontaine only supplied two of the four. The other two were probably made by James Smith who was paid 15/-d by Vulliamy for supplying the 'model of little eagle for panel reversed'. From research on the eagle mounts on the inkstand it is almost certain that the mount on this clock was also modelled by James Smith.

Inside frontplate stamped Holmden London 302.