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English Time Pieces

Except otherwise stated, all results include the premium.
​See also : Clocks  Old clocks  Mechanical craft ca 1800  Modern watches  Watches II  Ancient England  British Royals  Silverware

1677 Knibb Table Clock
2012 SOLD for £ 1.27M by Sotheby's

The use of oscillating pendulums in instruments for measuring time was invented by Christiaan Huygens in the late 1650s. The English will be the pioneers in the manufacture of these pendulum clocks.

Not only it was one of the most useful of all inventions but also, by raising the skills of the mechanical craftsmen, it was certainly a key to the start of the industrial revolution.

Joseph Knibb, who worked in London since 1670, was one of those masters of the time. Skilled clockmaker, he was a precursor and perhaps one of the inventors of the anchor escapement, a basic accessory designed to ensure the isochrony of the pendulum as a function of the deflection angle.

Back to the beginnings of his career. The horological collection of the watchmaker George Daniels, auctioned on November 6, 2012 by Sotheby's, included a clock made by Joseph Knibb,  sold for £ 1.27M from a lower estimate of £ 600K, lot 130.

Dated 1677, it has the shape already usual in his time of the table clock, a cube with a handle. This luxurious piece is in ebony, with Roman numerals on the dial.

1693 Tompion Q Clock
2019 SOLD for £ 1.93M by Bonhams

Established in London since 1671, Thomas Tompion became the best English manufacturer of clocks and watches by the accuracy of his mechanisms, the choice of the best materials and the employment of the best workers. He belongs to the second generation of pendulum clock manufacturers. Sponsored by Robert Hooke, he certainly benefited from the experience of the pioneering Oxford clockmakers.

Aware of the quality of his production, Tompion numbered his instruments, an exceptional practice in his time for a manufactured product. He mixes in a single serialization list the table clocks and the long case clocks. His clocks have a long autonomy. His grande sonnerie pieces offer a repetition of quarters over a long duration.

From 1692 or 1693 Tompion improves the elegance of his design with his Phase Two which includes the cushion dome, the thistle bud handle, the bellflower keyhole and the operation of the mechanism from the front face.

The master seems more interested in standardization than in miniaturization. Nevertheless Number 215 appears as the first of a small series of Phase Two table clocks with a total height of 28 cm including the raised handle. It was sold for £ 170K by Bonhams on December 13, 2011.

Number 222, made especially for Queen Mary II in 1693 and known as the Q Clock, is the smallest clock ever made by Tompion with an ebony case. It is 20 cm high overall with the handle raised. It offers the quarter repetition and an autonomy of eight days.

Re-assembled in 1949 by a collector with its original movement, this silver mounted royal clock was sold for £ 1.93M by Bonhams on June 19, 2019, lot 103. A modern replica was joined to the lot. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.

We are delighted to announce that one of the most valuable clocks ever to appear at auction, The King William & Queen Mary Royal Tompion, will star in The Clive Collection of Exceptional Clocks in London on 19 June.https://t.co/6ufWtyi4Ax pic.twitter.com/ROoThd69zu

— Bonhams (@bonhams1793) May 20, 2019
Old Clocks
Silverware
Ancient England
British Royals

1725 Astronomical Regulator by Graham
2002 SOLD for $ 1.77M by Sotheby's

King Charles II founded the Royal Observatory in Greenwich in 1675. Its objective was to calculate the longitude through the position of the stars to ensure the control of the seas. The first Royal Astronomer, John Flamsteed, established a catalog of stars of unprecedented precision.

The length of the sidereal day is four minutes less than the length of the solar day. In 1691 Thomas Tompion executed a sidereal clock designed by Flamsteed for Greenwich.

On July 11, 2003, Christie's sold a longcase regulator at lot 156 for £ 620K. This instrument one-of-a-kind in its time displays both solar and sidereal time on a dial with two concentric rings, with a one month reserve. The combination of the two mechanisms is a technical feat, including a wheel with 586 teeth for sidereal time and a wheel with 244 teeth for solar time.

Numbered 483 by Tompion, this regulator was made in his later career. The terminus ante quem is the end of his association with Edward Banger, around 1708 : a plaque bears these two names.

George Graham, who had worked for Tompion since 1688 and will be his successor, is not identified on these plaques. The escapements fitted to 483 are of anchor type with deadbeat, a mechanism tested in 1676 by Tompion from an invention by Towneley, and which will later be known as Graham escapement.

Made circa 1725, the regulator numbered 634 by George Graham offers the very rare and perhaps unique combination of the functions of the 483 with a perpetual calendar. The sidereal and solar time dials are separate. 634 was sold by Sotheby's on June 19, 2002 for $ 1.77M from a lower estimate of $ 150K, lot 172.

1783 Elephant
2012 SOLD for £ 1.6M by Sotheby's

At the beginning of the reign of George III, English mechanics are the best in the world. Qianlong knows. The prestige of serving such an illustrious client encourages English watchmakers to create extraordinary pieces.

The musical automaton sold for £ 1.6M from a lower estimate of £ 1M on July 4, 2012 by Sotheby's is highly sophisticated. Around 1780, the Swiss have not yet started the trend of songbirds. The main element of the piece is a big elephant that moves its trunk and ears and turns its eyeballs. Standing on the clock, it carries on its back a canopy covered pagoda surmounted by a Catherine wheel. The whole is 102 cm high.

This incredible object brought out from oblivion the maker who signed it, named Peter Torckler, listed in the commercial registers of London from 1780 to 1783. He thus appears as a skillful contemporary but probably also an unsuccessful competitor of James Cox.

There is no evidence that this piece went to reach China. It was probably in London in the 1890s when it was bought by the Shah of Persia.

I invite you to discover its main movements in the videos shared by Sotheby's.

1790 The Swan Pagoda Clock
2014 SOLD for £ 2.27M by Sotheby's

Clocks with self sounding bells had been introduced in the Chinese Imperial court by the Jesuits. The Chinese were not interested in time keeping but were amazed by the mechanisms. The English clockmakers were leading the market before the rise of the Swiss automata. They viewed in due course that the musical automaton clocks were capable to open to them a little more from the huge Chinese market. James Cox was allowed by the East India Company to open a shop in Canton's British zone.

​The appealing criteria for these export clocks was the exuberance. A typical model was the pagoda clock, whose case was made of several tiers with a square surface gradually decreasing upwards, in a reference to the 80 m high nine-tiered Nanjing pagoda.

A pair of such clocks 116 cm high was made ca 1790 for the Chinese market. The five tiers are surmounted with a faceted automaton star linked to a rotating drum. Enamels are abundant and the second level displays a simulated fountain. The back plate is signed by Thompson in London. The clock rings the quarters.

The pair had been withdrawn for trade from an imperial palace in the early years of the Republic. It has been separated. One of them was sold for £ 570K by Christie's on June 12, 2003, lot 45. The other is the Swan clock featuring two of these birds swimming in the fountain. It was sold by Sotheby's on July 9, 2014 for £ 2.27M from a lower estimate of £ 1M, lot 48.

1793 English Presentation Clock to the Qianlong Emperor
2008 SOLD for HK$ 36M by Christie's
​to be narrated

Link to catalogue.
Clocks
Mechanical Craft ca 1800

Pagoda
​2017 SOLD for $ 1M by Fontaine's

English clocks and Swiss watches improved by automata are highly valued at the imperial court of the Qing in the late eighteenth century. Some productions are managed specifically for that export, soon superseded by a workshop for the manufacture of automaton clocks in Guangzhou. Unfortunately this industry is poorly documented.

On January 21, 2017, Fontaine's sold for $ 1M an English clock designed to please the Chinese, lot 118. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.

Its shape is inspired by the porcelain tower or pagoda of Nanjing, created at the request of the Yongle emperor of the Ming to be the masterpiece of the Buddhist devotion. This elegant monument destroyed by the Taiping rebels between 1856 and 1860 consisted of nine levels in decreasing surfaces with a total height of 80 meters. It was long the tallest building in the world, located in Nanjing which was the largest city in the world.

The clock for sale was recently found in a basement. It has been cleaned and is in working order. The automaton shrinking the nine levels is triggered every two hours as well as a music made by small bells distributed at all levels executing a tune that was highly popular at the time of the Qing. The total height of the instrument is 1.25 m in the raised position.

This clock is not unique : a similar unit was exhibited in Macao in 2004. We do not know more about its origins, certainly prior to the development of the clock workshops of the Qing. No Chinese imitation is referred in the catalog of the auction house.

A clock made in Guangzhou at some time in the 19th century was sold for $ 1.27M by Fontaine's on May 21, 2016.

George DANIELS
​Intro

In the era of quartz watches, George Daniels managed to demonstrate that mechanical watches could still be fully competitive. 

A repair craftsman of great skill, he became a specialist of Breguet and then made ​​his own watches with an increasing complexity. In 1980, 157 years after the master's death, he is the first inventor to patent a basic innovation : his coaxial escapement reduces the friction to the point that mechanical watches no longer need a lubricant.

His dials, hands, cases, movements and assembly were hand made ​​entirely by him from scratch in his workshop of the Isle of Man in the middle of the Irish sea. His understanding of mechanics was such that he made very few preliminary drawings for developing a new complication. The very design of the dials is in the aesthetic style of Breguet enhanced by guilloché.

His effectiveness was outstanding. The watches equipped with his coaxial escapement are reaching an accuracy below 1 second per month, better than any quartz watch in his time.

In 2006 Sotheby's devoted an exhibition to his work in London.


Daniels was a lover of any great mechanics. The exceptional Bentley Blower racing car sold for £ 5M by Bonhams in 2012 came from his collection.

1
​1971 The Edward Hornby
2021 SOLD for $ 1.66M by Phillips
​to be narrated

Sold for £ 465K by Sotheby's on July 6, 2017, lot 78.
Sold for $ 1.66M by Phillips on December 12, 2021, lot 102.
Hodinkee : a tourbillon pocket watch made by Daniels in 1971 for the English lawyer Edward Hornby sold at Phillips New York for $1,663,500 USD. ​

2
​1982 Space Traveller I
​2019 SOLD for £ 3.6M by Sotheby's

Throughout his career George Daniels has imitated and improved the most daring complications of pocket watches, often taking Breguet as an example. For the sidereal hour, his model was George Margetts, a contemporary of Breguet who worked in London. Daniels however did not emulate another remarkable specialty of Margetts, the tidal dial.

The equation of time is the difference between the apparent time, which can also be read on a sundial, and the sidereal time which takes its reference in the position of the fixed stars. This difference is an annual cycle due to the obliquity of the Earth and the ellipticity of its orbit.

The first pocket watch in which Daniels included the equation of time is his ninth opus, Elsom II, in 1975.

George Daniels was known for his wit. In 1979 he states that the accuracy of measurement obtained by Margetts, 1.8 seconds per year, is not sufficient for the control of time by an astronaut on his way to Mars. An astronomer from Cambridge University calculates for him a ratio between the two escapement wheels that will reduce the variance to 0.4 seconds per year.

The first pocket watch incorporating these new data is George Daniels' fifteenth opus, the Space Traveller, which also offers the annual calendar and the phases of the Moon. In 1982, shortly after finishing his Space Traveller, Daniels sold it to a collector, probably to meet a prior commitment.

The Space Traveller I was sold for £ 3.6M from a lower estimate of £ 700K by Sotheby's on July 2, 2019, lot 143.
Modern Watches
Watches 2nd page

3
​1983 Space Traveller II
2017 SOLD for £ 3.2M by Sotheby's

Frustrated that he had parted away from his Space Traveller I, George Daniels realized in 1983 the Space Traveller II, inspired from the I to which he added a chronograph and a thermometer. He did not let go this specimen. 

Based on a different denting of the two wheels, Daniels had been able to realize a watch compensating at the will of the user the difference of 3.555 minutes per day between solar and sidereal times.

Well aware that it was a sensational horological feat, Dr Daniels exhibited it sometimes at events as a dress watch, stating that it was the suitable instrument to control the time in a long telephone conversation during a trip to Mars.

George Daniels died in 2011. On November 6, 2012, Sotheby's sold his collection including historical timepieces and watches from his invention. Please watch the video shared by Sotheby's before the 2012 sale.

The Space Traveller II was sold for £ 1.33M, lot 9. Listed again at  Sotheby's on September 19, 2017, it was sold for £ 3.2M, lot 121.

4
1987 Grand Complication
2019 SOLD for CHF 2.4M by Phillips

The fourth and last pocket watch to which George Daniels included the equation of time is the Grand Complication. Built in 1987, it appears as the culmination of his pocket watches, before he entered a miniaturization phase for creating wristwatches.

Daniels worked with his intuition under the influence of Breguet's achievements. The Grand Complication includes mechanisms entirely invented by him for the annual calendar and for the repeating of minutes. Built on a one-minute coaxial escapement tourbillon, it also offers the moon phases, the power reserve indicator, the equation of time and even a bimetallic thermometer, all of that in a 62 mm diameter case. The dial is highly readable.

Daniels died in 2011. In the auction of his collection by Sotheby's on November 6, 2012, the top estimate at £ 500K was for the Grand Complication, thus being announced as the most important of Daniels' prototype watches. It had been sold for £ 915K, lot 10. It was sold for CHF 2.4M by Phillips in Geneva on May 11, 2019, lot 34.

The Grand Complication is shown in operation in a short video inserted in an article prepared by Phillips, illustrated with many photos. The image below is shared by Wikimedia with attribution to Andrewrabbott [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)]
George Daniels Grand Complication watch

5
​1992 Spring Case Tourbillon
​2022 SOLD for CHF 4.1M by Phillips

Going further into miniaturization, George Daniels inserted for the first time his co-axial in a wristwatch in 1991. This watch named the Four Minute Tourbillon was sold on November 6, 2012 by Sotheby's for £ 385K, lot 13. The slim escapement was mounted in a steel four-minute tourbillon carriage. This piece also incorporated Daniels's compact chronograph mechanism.

He built during his career 23 pocket watches and 2 wristwatches. Two additional prototype wristwatches and two commercial series of wristwatches, the Millennium from 1998 and Anniversary from 2010, were crafted under his guidance for his brand by his partner Roger Smith.

Daniels's second prototype wristwatch, named the Spring Case Tourbillon, was completed in 1992 and used by him as his personal wristwatch for a decade. He parted from it in the early 2000s. It resurfaced two decades later and was sold by Phillips for CHF 4.1M from a lower estimate of CHF 1M on November 5, 2022, lot 27. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.

The case is split into an outer smooth shell and an inner round element that contains the entirety of the dial and movement. A simple curved spring lines the bottom of the inner element and a hinge is attached to the external side. When a small button on the outside of the case is engaged, the inner element immediately jumps up and opens to reveal the reverse dial without requiring the watch to be taken off the wrist. The calendar and the visible one minute tourbillon are displayed on the reverse dial.

6
​2019 Anniversary
​2022 SOLD for $ 2.4M by Phillips
to be narrated

Built in 2019 by Smith with the movement number 00, a platinum Anniversary was sold for $ 2.4M by Phillips on June 11, 2022, lot 12.
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