Beschreibung:

A GEORGE III ORMOLU TABLE CLOCK FOR THE CHINESE MARKET WITH MUSICAL, QUARTER-STRIKING, AND AUTOMATON MOVEMENT
FRANCIS PERIGAL, LONDON, CIRCA 1790
CASE: the case of cartouche outline with architectural top, the hexagonal pagoda with domed roof and waisted finial, flambeau vases and drapery mounts above the ribbon-tied cluster columns, a dais with kneeling automaton figure holding a scroll with a four-character idiom, wuzi dengke, (broadly translated as ‘May your five sons attain the highest honors in the Imperial examination’), at the quarter-hour the figure raises the scroll, the base with four further finials flanking a scroll pediment, caryatid figures amidst foliage to the angles, masks and crossed torchere and quiver to the centre, raised on scroll feet, the sides with latticework sound frets to the upper concave sections and pierced foliate frets to the sides and rear door
DIAL: the white enamel dial with Roman hours and Arabic five minutes with dot minute markers, signed ‘PERIGAL / ROYAL EXCHANGE / LONDON’, pierced gilt hour and minute hands and counter-balanced sweep centre seconds, the shaped silvered dial plate decorated in blue and green with dragons to the upper spandrels, the lower angles with subsidiary dials ‘CHIME / NOT CHIME’ and ‘DANCE / JIGG / MINUET / MARCH’, the arch with automaton coastal scene, the painted tole landscape with ships passing and backed by a spiral ‘waterfall’ of rotating glass rods
MOVEMENT: the five pillar triple chain fusee movement with knife-edge verge escapement, playing music on ten bells via ten hammers and 3 in. long pin barrel, hour strike on a further bell to backplate, the ting-tang quarters being struck on the hour bell and a further smaller bell above the movement, the backplate profusely engraved with flower-heads and foliate scrolls about a lattice basket, signature cartouche to lower edge ‘FRANS. PERIGAL / Royal Exchange / LONDON’
24 in. (61 cm.), 12 1⁄8 in. (30.8 cm.), 7 ¾ in. (19.7 cm.) deep