Footnotes

In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the Royal Clockmakers Benjamin Vulliamy (1747-1811) and his son and successor Benjamin Lewis Vulliamy (1780-1854) supplied the British Royal Family, the aristocracy and other wealthy customers with the finest ornamental clocks from their shop at 74 (later renumbered 68) Pall Mall, Westminster, conveniently close to St James's Palace. [1] Benjamin Vulliamy personally designed these clocks in the latest fashion, and then subcontracted the different processes of manufacture to numerous specialists, while maintaining careful supervision to ensure that the work met his very high standards. [2]
Vulliamy's earliest ornamental clocks incorporated chaste neo-Classical biscuit figures which were specially modelled for him in London, and then produced to his specifications by the Derby Porcelain Manufactory. However, at the very end of the eighteeth century he responded to the changing tastes of his fashionable customers by starting to produce a range of clocks ornamented in a more robust style, that would later be termed Empire or (in Britain) Regency. The dominant elements of these clocks were no longer allegorical "Greek" figures in biscuit porcelain, but Imperial Roman eagles and pairs of sphinxes or recumbent lions, made in ormolu or bronze.

The use of two lions flanking a marble drum clock proved particularly successful, and the firm produced such clocks for many years, with the lions changing their form several times. The earliest held a ball - either under one paw or between both front paws - perhaps derived from an ancient Roman statue in Florence known as the Medici lion. The earliest true clock of this type produced by Vulliamy was No. 309, delivered on 5 March 1799 to the wealthy connoisseur and author William Beckford. [3] However, it was preceded by a very similar case without a movement, which was delivered to the Countess of Cork and Orrery a year earlier, on 26 February 1798. This is described in the surviving record of manufacture as a "small black marble case for a watch movement with two lions." [4] Such cases without a clock movement were very unusual in Vulliamy's output, and although the record refers to it being made of black, rather than black and white, marble, there would be no doubt that this referred to the present case, even without the provenance still recorded on the clock.

The craftsmen and suppliers employed in the manufacture of the case were those regularly used by Vulliamy at this period, the main payments being to Day for the marble work (£4-18s-0d), Hoole for casting and chasing the lions (£2-6s-6d), Huguenin for the brass work (£4-5s-0d) and Crockett for gilding the brass (£3-1s-0d). Smaller sums were paid to Long & Drew for the dial (9s-0d), and Haas for the brass ring (3s-0d). [5] It should be noted that although this seems to be the earliest appearance of such lions - and even of this style of clock - in Vulliamy's work, there is no reference to Lady Cork being charged for patterns or models, so it is unlikely that she commissioned the original design.

There is also no reference to Vulliamy providing a watch movement for the case, so Lady Cork presumably made separate arrangements for that. The surviving movement is signed by the London watchmaker Josias Jessop, who worked in Southampton Street, Covent Garden, but he retired from business a few years before the case was made, so was probably not involved in adapting the movement for its present use. [6]

Interestingly, although Vulliamy rarely made such cases for watch movements, the Dowager Lady Cork bought another in 1802, this time with two sphinxes rather than lions [7] That case also survives, now with a replacement movement and hands. [8]. Why she wanted such cases is unclear. It is unlikely to have been a matter of price, since clock No. 309 sold to William Beckford in the following year cost 33 guineas (£34-13s-0d), of which the Vulliamy timepiece movement would have formed only a small part, (its prime cost to Vulliamy being 5 guineas). A balance-controlled movement would certainly have been less susceptible to movement, but these "clocks" would not have been portable in any real sense - Vulliamy even provided a glass shade for Lady Cork's second case - so her reasons remain speculative.

Notes
1. For a brief history of the Vulliamy family of watch and clock makers, see the present author's article in The Oxford National Dictionary of Biography (2004).
2. Vulliamy's personal role in the design of his clocks is discussed in R.Smith, "Benjamin Vulliamy's library: a collection of neo-Classical design sources", The Burlington Magazine, June 1999, pp.328-37.
3. Information about clock No. 309 comes from Vulliamy Clock Book 1 in the British Horological Institute (BHI). It survives and was sold at Christie's, London 20 November 2008, lot 5.
4. Vulliamy Clock Book 1, BHI.
5. Day and Hoole appear in lists of suppliers/workmen in Vulliamy's Watch Day Books: Mr Day, statuary etc., Brewers Row, Westminster; Arthur Hoole (or Houle), 1 Middle New Street, Fetter Lane. [The National Archives, C 104/58 - published by Francis Wadsworth in "Some early 19th Century Workmen", Antiquarian Horology, Summer 1991, pp. 401-12.]
6. The auction of Jessop's lease, household furniture and valuable stock in trade, on his retiring from business, was announced in the Daily Advertiser 12 April 1794.
7. Delivered 16 June 1802. Vulliamy Clock Book 1, BHI.
8. It was included in the exhibition The Age of Matthew Boulton. Masterpieces of Neo-Classicism, Mallett & Son Antiques, London 2000, (pp. 85, 90-1 of the catalogue).


We are grateful to Roger Smith for his research concerning this lot.