The substantial posted countwheel bell striking twelve-hour movement with frame measuring 8.25 ins high, 7.5 ins wide and 6 ins deep incorporating square section uprights secured with threaded nuts to the plates, enclosing separately wound three-wheel trains incorporating iron walls to the click side of both pulleys, the going now with anchor escapement regulated by seconds pendulum with butterfly and secondary bob regulation swinging behind the frame to the rear, the strike train sounding the hours on a large 7 inch diameter bell mounted above the frame via a countwheel with overlift provided by a hoop wheel cut with a single slot, the leading edge of the top plate with a second small bell struck at the half-hour by a hammer pivoted on a scroll-shaped branch extending from the front movement bar, the rear with alarm mechanism crownwheel and pulley assembly set on a post rivetted to the rear movement bar engaging with a vertically pivoted T-shaped hammer sounding on the inside of the bell above, the 11 inch square brass dial with central silvered rose engraved Roman numeral alarm setting dial set within a finely engraved semi-symmetrical arrangement of leafy tulip, anemone and narcissus blooms incorporating a fine drapery lambrequin surmounted by a stylised grotesque mask and signed Andrew Prime, Londini, Fecit to centre, with fine sculpted pierced steel hand within applied narrow silvered Roman numeral chapter ring with stylised fleur-de-lys half hour markers, the spandrel areas further engraved with leafy anemone blooms issuing from cornucopias within a scribed-line border, now in a later purpose-made gilt brass mounted ebonised architectural case with rising hood incorporating crisply moulded triangular pediment applied with a Baroque figural scroll cast gilt brass cartouche mount to tympanum, over further tied husk swag mount to the upper rail of the glazed dial surround applied with complex mouldings around the aperture, the sides with rectangular glazed apertures, the trunk with convex throat moulding over 45 inch rectangular door applied with two long and one central short raised panels within complex edge mouldings, the sides applied with conforming panels, on plinth base with stepped ogee top mouldings and gilt brass bun feet.
217cm (85.5ins) high, 43cm (17ins) wide, 28cm 911ins) deep.

Provenance:

The property of A private collector.

Purchased from Carter Marsh selling exhibition The John C. Taylor Collection Part II 6th-27th September 2021 (Exhibit 14) for £15,000.

Christies, King Street, London IMPORTANT CLOCKS & MARINE CHRONOMETERS 14th June 2000 (lot 51) selling for £8,225.

Christies, King Street, London The Vitale Collection of Important European Clocks, Part II 26th November 1996 (lot 26) selling for £8,439.

With M.G. Hutton Esq. in 1970.

Literature and exhibition:

Illustrated in Antiquarian Horology June 1970 (volume VI, number 7) page 452.

Illustrated and described in Dawson, Percy G.; Drover, C.B. and Parkes, D.W. Early English Clocks pages 220 and 224-26 (Plates 299-301).

Illustrated in Robinson, Tom The Longcase Clock page 42-43 (Figure 2/25).

The dial illustrated and discussed in Dzik, Sunny ENGRAVING ON ENGLISH TABLE CLOCKS, Art on a Canvas of Brass pages 68-69 (Figure 6.3).

Illustrated and described in Darken, Jeff HOROLOGICAL MASTERWORKS catalogue for an exhibition held at The Museum of the History of Science, Oxford, 29th March-22nd June 2003 (exhibit 21).

Illustrated and described in Garnier, Richard and Hollis Leo, Innovation and Collaboration, The Early Development of the Pendulum Clock in London catalogue for an exhibition held at Bonhams, London, 3rd-14th September 2018 (exhibit 61).

Andrew Prime is recorded in Loomes, Brian Clockmakers of Britain 1286-1700 as born the son of a weaver/mercer of the same name in 1619. He was apprenticed to Abraham Boyce in the Blacksmiths' Company in 1632 gaining his freedom in 1641. Andrew Prime was closely connected with Ahasuerus Fromanteel whose sister, Elizabeth, he married in 1646; the same year he became a Free Brother of the Clockmakers' Company. The marriage bore three children with the youngest, Abraham, following is his father's footsteps to become a clockmaker. In July 1653 Andrew Prime took-in Samuel Fromanteel as an apprentice through the Blacksmith's Company, followed by five further apprentices through the Clockmakers' Company; including his son, Abraham in 1661 (freed 1672/3), and Edward Clement who gained his freedom in 1671.

In 1656 Andrew Prime supported the rebels against the Clockmakers' Company administration, and he was successively fined several times for refusing to serve as a Steward of the Company. In March 1674 he was made an Assistant, despite his protestations. In December of that year he is recorded as making a turret clock for St. Andrews Church, Hornchurch, at which time he was noted as residing in Cree Church Parish. Prime rarely attended meetings and is believed to have returned to Norwich in around 1682 where he remained until his death in 1710.

Andrew Prime's close association with the Fromanteel family is born from their shared roots in Norwich. Although relatively few clocks by Prime survive, the quality of their execution is befitting of his connection with them as exemplified by two lantern clocks by Prime illustrated in White, George English Lantern Clocks pages 209 (Figures IV/115-16) which utilise frame castings exclusively produced by the Fromanteel family.

The layout if the substantial movement of the current lot follows that of pre-pendulum lantern clock practice, with separately wound trains incorporating clockwise-rotating strike greatwheel and hour hammer located on the right-hand side. This layout, coupled with the requirement for twice-daily winding, would suggest that the present clock was originally conceived to have verge escapement regulated by a balance wheel set above the top plate. There is evidence that the movement was also at some point fitted with a verge escapement regulated by short bob pendulum swinging to the rear prior to instatement of the present anchor escapement. The passing half-hour strike is an unusual feature more often seen on French clocks and may be suggestive of Prime's Huguenot roots.

The engraved dial of the present lot can be compared to that of a key-wound thirty-hour longcase clock by Thomas Tompion illustrated in Robinson, Tom The Longcase Clock on page 62 (Figure 4/13). Another closely related dial, this time signed within the lambrequin for Charles Gretton, was offered in these rooms Thursday 25th March 2925 (lot 201). A further dial for a clock by Joseph Knibb is also illustrated alongside that of the current lot in Dzik, Sunny ENGRAVING ON ENGLISH TABLE CLOCKS, Art on a Canvas of Brass on page 68 (Figure 6.3) - although this dial substitutes the lambrequin signature panel for an urn motif. An unusual detail visible on the current lot is the presence of a small grotesque mask above the lambrequin which echoes similar large masks seen on night clocks of the Edward East School (see Darken, Jeff HOROLOGICAL MASTERWORKS page 57). 

As a general observation, the design and feel of the engraving conforms to that seen on table clocks of the period as described by Dzik pages 67-99. Of particular interest are two backplates for clocks by Joseph Knibb illustrated on page 74 (Figure 6.9).

The present clock is a very well documented, fine and rare survivor by a fine maker with connections to the most important workshop from the early part of the 'Golden Age' of English clockmaking.