Important Watches, Collectors’ Wristw...

Hotel Noga Hilton, Nov 14, 2004

LOT 304

Quare and Stephen Horseman, London, No. 229, circa 1725. Important and very fine ebonized eight-day going hour and half-hour striking, quarter-repeating bracket clock with date.

CHF 60,000 - 80,000

EUR 40,000 - 50,000 / USD 50,000 - 60,000

Sold: CHF 73,600

C. Ebony veneered with caddie top, arched glazed door with pierced wood corner frets, glazed side panels, molded base raised on rectangular molded feet, pivoted brass carrying handle at the top. D. Silvered chapter ring with radial Roman numerals, inner quarter-hour divisions, outer minute divisions with five-minute Arabic markers, the arched upper section with silvered date dial, all encased within pierced spandrels decorated with masks and scrolling, regulator scale in the top left corner, striking/silent dial to the right. Blued steel hands. M. 19 x 14 cm, brass, back plate fully engraved with female figures, flower basket and scrolling, fusee and gut on going and striking trains, verge escapement, brass rod pendulum with brass lens bob, spring suspension at movable bracket for adjustment, rack and snail striking, pull repeat.Dial and movement signed.Dim. height 46 cm, width 26 cm, depth 18 cm.


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Grading System
Grade: AAA

Excellent
Case: 3

Good
Movement: 3*

Good

Overhaul recommended, at buyer's expense
Dial: 3 - 01

Notes

Daniel Quare Believed to have been born circa 1647/48 in Somerset. Became a Brother in the Clockmakers? Company in April 1671, as a Great Clockmaker. Was a Quaker and as such would not sign oaths and perhaps for this reason he is described as a ?covenant servant? rather than an apprentice. He took numerous apprentices, among them Stephen Horseman son of Stephen Horseman of Brayton, Yorkshire, wheelwright, deceased. By 1680 he is recorded at The Kings Arms, Exchange Alley. About 1680 Quare is said to have made repeating watches of his own design and in the struggle between 1686 and 1688, in which the Clockmakers? Company opposed the application for a repeating watch patent by Rev. Edward Barlow. The case was considered by the Prevy Consul on the 2nd of March 1687 and barlows application for the patent was refused in favour of Quare?s ?squeezing watches?. In 1695 Quare applied for a patent for a portable weatherglass although the Clockmakers? Company opposed its granting and, when this was granted in September, the Clockmakers? Company decreed that they would defend any member who still made or sold such glasses in opposition to Quare's patent and who might get into trouble as a result. He was made Assistant in the Clockmakers? Company from 1700, Warden from 1705, Master in 1708 and attended till his death in 1724, being buried at the Quakers' Burial Ground at Bunhill Fields, though said to have d ed at Croydon. He had three daughters and a son, who does not appear to have followed the trade. In later years he took into partnership Stephen Horseman, his former apprentice, and after his death Horseman carried on the business until he went bankrupt in 1733. From ?The Early Clockmakers of Great Britain? by Brian Loomes, London, 1981.