Beschreibung:

A fine Queen Anne ebonised eight-day longcase clock Richard Street, London, circa 1705 The substantial five fully latched and crisply turned finned pillar inside rack and bell striking movement with anchor escapement, unusually long crutch and 12 inch square brass dial with subsidiary seconds dial and calendar aperture to the matted centre within applied silvered Roman numeral chapter ring with cruciform half hour markers, Arabic five minutes to outer track and signed Rich. Street, London to lower edge, with delicate pierced steel hands and rare gilt twin cherub and female cast spandrels to angles, the ebonised case with gilt ball and spire finials to the domed caddy surmounted fine foliate fretwork fronted box upstand above moulded cornice and further conforming foliate pierced fret to frieze, generous three-quarter columns with gilt caps and bases to glazed hood door, the sides with rectangular windows and rear quarter columns each set against bargeboard rising up to the underside of the cornice projection, the trunk with convex throat above 42 inch rectangular door pasted with rare original paper Equation of Time table with printed repeat signature Sold By RICH STREET Clockmaker at ye Dial & Two Crowns over againft St. Dunftans Church in Fleet-Street LONDON, on plain plinth base with two-tier moulded skirt, 234cm (92ins) high excluding finials, 244cm (96ins) high overall. Richard Street is an important but relatively enigmatic maker who is recorded in Baillie G.H. Watchmakers & Clockmakers of the World as gaining his freedom of the Clockmakers' Company in 1687, made Assistant in 1713 and appointed Warden 1716. He was a fine maker who had close working connections with Thomas Tompion for whom it is thought he made repeating watch movements (see Evans, Jeremy THOMAS TOMPION at the Dial and Three Crowns page 114). Street is perhaps best known for his commission by Sir Isaac Newton to supply a monumental month duration longcase clock for presentation to Dr. Bentley for the Observatory at Trinity College Cambridge in 1708; he also, alongside William Wright took over the maintenance of the turret clock at St. Pauls Cathedral from Langley Bradley in 1716. A year going clock in an Arabesque marquetry case by Street also survives in the Collection of the National Trust at Melford Hall, Suffolk. The current lot is very rare in that the original paper Equation of Time table survives almost entirely intact pasted to the inside of the trunk door. A less complete but otherwise identical table is illustrated Robinson, Tom THE LONGCASE CLOCK on page 170 (fig. 8/16) where it is noted that the design is the same as those produced by Tompion at this time. The complete nature of the example supplied with the current lot allows all the text to be made out, including the name of the engraver. Above the table; A Table, OF THE, Equation of Days, SHEWING, How much a good, Pendulum Watch Ought to be faster, or slower than a, True Sun Dial, Every Day in ye Year. Sold By RICH STREET Clockmaker at ye Dial & Two Crowns over againft St. Dunftans Church in Fleet-Street LONDON. Below the table; Let the Watch so much Faster or Slower than ye Time by the, Sun according to the Table for the Day of the Month when you, set it and if the Watch go true the Difference of it from ye Sun, any Day afterward will be the same with the Table. I Sturt Sculp. Tompion's influence/connection with Richard Street becomes even more apparent when the rest of the current lot is examined. The fully latched movement is very well made with exceptional pillars and large plates measuring almost 8 by 6 inches. The use of inside rack and the delicate functionality of the wheelwork echoes Tompion's exacting standards however Street has detailed the movement in such a way as to give it his own identity. The dial is clean and refined in its design and utilises a rare pattern of spandrel which is generally only found on the finest of twelve inch dials from this period. The proportions and