Beschreibung:

A George III ormolu and guilloche enamel mounted musical automaton table clock for the Chinese market Henry Borrell, London. Circa 1790 The case decorated with panels of royal blue guilloché enamel embellished with paillons , with gold and green peacock feathers and golden fronds interlaced with multicoloured garlands of flowers and paillons, the domed top surmounted by a green and red paste-set automaton catherine wheel revolving against a mirrored plate and within an ormolu sunburst frame, the angles with beaded volute mounts, the side panels with trellis mounts cast as trailing husks dividing panels of peacock feathers, with floral swag mounts to the cornices, the rear door with an openwork cast panel modelled with cornucopiae, ho-ho birds and foliage, on a plinth cast with a heavy berried laurel border, supported on four ormolu and enamel outswept leaf cast feet with lion's head terminals, the front with conforming decorative panels and with paste-set music selection and hand-set knobs, paste gem border to the automaton scene covered by a sliding panel decorated in polychrome enamels with geometric patterns, raised on each hour to reveal ships processing before an arched bridge, with twisted glass rods simulating a waterfall to the rear, the painted metal ships moving along further glass rods imitating the sea, with paste-set bezel to the white enamel Roman and Arabic dial, with gilt spade hands and sweep centre seconds, the movement with thick brass plates secured by six pillars, triple chain fusees, pinwheel escapement mounted on the backplate with steel-suspended pendulum with signed Borrell's Pendulum on calibrated rating disc, music playing on eight bells via fifteen hammers and 2½in. diameter pinned barrel, the quarters and hours struck on two further large bells, the automaton scene operating in conjunction with the music and with independent trip to the side of the case, the border-engraved backplate signed Henry Borrell London within a central cartouche 11in. (79cm.) high