Longcase clock
Brounker Watts (c.1670 - c.1720)
Category
Horology
Date
1710 - 1730
Materials
Oak, pine, steel, iron, brass, gesso, gold leaf and japanning
Measurements
266.0 x 50.5 x 24.4 cm
Place of origin
Fleet Street
Order this imageCollection
Chastleton House, Oxfordshire
NT 1430171
Summary
A month-going longcase clock, English, the dial inscribed ‘Brounker Watts London’, c. 1700-10. The two-train, five pillar movement with anchor escapement and outside countwheel hour-striking on a bell. The 12-inch square dial with seconds dial, date aperture and silvered chapter ring marking Roman hours and Arabic minutes, and with matted centre and pierced brass spandrels cast with cherubs supporting an Imperial crown. The ogee-domed hood with three brass ball finials above a frieze and entablature supported by columns with Doric capitals, the (later) long door in the trunk with a round glazed lenticle (window) onto the pendulum, and with a moulded base, all the wooden surfaces japanned in imitation of tortoiseshell and decorated in gold and silver and partly in relief with motifs and scenes inspired by Japanese and Chinese lacquer, the door in the trunk with a sun shining over a pine tree, buildings and three figures, a floral vignette lower down, and a large bird with buildings and trees on the base.
Full description
Japanese lacquer was popular in seventeenth-century Britain, and British artisans began to develop their own versions of it, often called ‘japanning’. The European pigments and varnishes they used were different from East-Asian lacquer and the decoration was copied rather freely from Japanese lacquer and subsequently also from Chinese lacquer, without much awareness of its original significance. The tortoiseshell effect created here was one of the stylistic developments seen in European japanning. The sun depicted at the top of the trunk door, with its rays and facial features, is also derived from European pictorial traditions: in East-Asian art the sun and moon tend to be depicted simply as circles. For another example of a sun with rays represented in japanning, see a c. 1675 side table at Ham House, NT 1140053. Brouncker Watts (c. 1670–1718) was apprenticed to Joseph Knibb, one of the most celebrated makers in late-seventeenth- and early-eighteenth-century clock-making, in which England led the world. He worked in London, but he was the son of Brouncker Watts of Bourton in Oxfordshire, which may be why one of his clocks was chosen for Chastleton. He died in January 1717/18. This clock is rare in that it retains its original pulleys and weights, as well as a printed paper Equation table inside the trunk door. This provides, for every day of the year, the difference between apparent solar time (time by a sundial) and mean solar time (time by a good clock). This difference, which can be as much as sixteen minutes, is known as the Equation of time and is essential to have if one is setting a clock precisely using a sundial. Emile de Bruijn, Assistant National Curator (Decorative Art) – May/June 2024
Makers and roles
Brounker Watts (c.1670 - c.1720)