James Stratton
Director
Lot 13
A fine and rare early 19th century gilt- brass Congreve-style 'rolling ball' skeleton clock Attributed to Joseph Moxon, London
2 December 2025, 14:00 GMT
London, New Bond Street£12,000 - £18,000
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Lewis Walduck
Cataloguer
A fine and rare early 19th century gilt- brass Congreve-style 'rolling ball' skeleton clock
Attributed to Joseph Moxon, London
The time displayed to the nearest second on three silvered chapter rings with blued steel hands set on an open architectural triangular pediment with vacant silvered name plate to the front, raised on four tapering Doric columns, each surmounted by a ball and spire finial on a stepped plinth and connected top and bottom by an open frame with spirit level to the lower front edge and raised on four adjustable ball feet (the feet linked underneath the base by a brass X-frame), further set on a mahogany base board and protected from the elements by a removable five-panel glazed cover. The chain fusee movement wound from the rear with six-spoke wheels, the seconds wheel arbor fitted to a crank wheel with fine rack and pinion adjustment to the tilting table below which is pivoted on knife-edges between a pair of open circular trunnions front and back. The tilting table features diagonal grooves along which a steel ball runs; as it does so, the passing seconds can be read on a self-adjusting silvered scale which automatically advances as the ball finishes its run and trips the lever to tilt the table in the opposite way. 46cms (18ins) high. 46cms (18ins) high.
The time displayed to the nearest second on three silvered chapter rings with blued steel hands set on an open architectural triangular pediment with vacant silvered name plate to the front, raised on four tapering Doric columns, each surmounted by a ball and spire finial on a stepped plinth and connected top and bottom by an open frame with spirit level to the lower front edge and raised on four adjustable ball feet (the feet linked underneath the base by a brass X-frame), further set on a mahogany base board and protected from the elements by a removable five-panel glazed cover. The chain fusee movement wound from the rear with six-spoke wheels, the seconds wheel arbor fitted to a crank wheel with fine rack and pinion adjustment to the tilting table below which is pivoted on knife-edges between a pair of open circular trunnions front and back. The tilting table features diagonal grooves along which a steel ball runs; as it does so, the passing seconds can be read on a self-adjusting silvered scale which automatically advances as the ball finishes its run and trips the lever to tilt the table in the opposite way. 46cms (18ins) high. 46cms (18ins) high.
Footnotes
Provenance:
Sotheby's London, 1 October 1998, lot 460.
William Congreve (1772–1828) was the son of Sir William Congreve, Superintendent of the Royal Laboratory at Greenwich. A man of both scientific curiosity and mechanical ingenuity, he is best remembered today for his contributions to horology and military engineering. His most famous invention, the Congreve Rocket, was successfully employed during the later Napoleonic campaigns, including the siege of Copenhagen (1807) and the Battle of Leipzig (1812), where Congreve himself commanded a rocket unit. Within the field of clockmaking, he is celebrated for devising the ingenious rolling ball timepiece and for developing clocks with a highly refined detached escapement, showcasing both technical innovation and aesthetic originality. A similar clock to the present lot is in the British Museum, once the property of the great collector Courtney Ilbert.