An 18th Century Longcase Clock

The case with broken-arch top and stepped caddy, cresting above foliate frets and simulated tortoiseshell hood pillars, the broken arch trunk door decorated with three prints of scenes from Don Quixote (three original labels describing the scenes, pasted on the inner side of the red washed interior door), the plinth decorated in gilt chinoiserie form within a simulated tortoiseshell border, the whole profusely decorated with flowers, fruit and gilt diaper work. Enclosed within the hood, is a 13-inch dial with mask and scroll spandrels, matted centre with subsidiary seconds dial and engraved date aperture, signed on a boss in the arch Jams Thorn, Colchester, the five pillar movement striking on a bell.

Illustrated and discussed, E T Joy, ‘Glemham Hall, Suffolk and Its Furniture’, Connoisseur, June, 1976, p. 98, p. 99, fig. 5.
Joy (op. cit.) writes ‘This particular clock is a real ‘find’, for it was discovered, unheeded and grimy, many years ago in a Colchester Inn’.

Height: 268cm, 8 foot 10″