James Stratton
Director
Lot 88Y
A fine and rare late 17th century silver-mounted tortoiseshell veneered striking and quarter repeating table clock of small size Jonathan Puller, London
2 December 2025, 14:00 GMT
London, New Bond Street£10,000 - £15,000
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Lewis Walduck
Cataloguer
A fine and rare late 17th century silver-mounted tortoiseshell veneered striking and quarter repeating table clock of small size
Jonathan Puller, London
The case surmounted by a finely cast silver twin-figural handle over a shallow caddy set to the front and rear with pierced foliate scrolls. The front door with silk-backed sound fret over a pair of silver Knibb-style escutcheons. The sides set with similar sound frets over rectangular glazed panels, the glazed rear door similar, on a moulded base and turned bun feet.
The 6-inch square dial with silvered Roman and Arabic chapter ring, signed between V and VII Jonat. Puller, Londini fecit and interspersed at X and II by the twin silvered subsidiary dials for strike/silent and rise-and-fall-regulation, framed by scroll engraving and set to the lower corners with cherubs-head spandrels. The finely matted centre with mock pendulum and date apertures, with blued steel hands.
The movement plates united by five latched vase-shaped pillars, the backplate with unusual chamfered edge, the going train with pivoted verge escapement to a spring-suspended pendulum terminating in a lenticular bob. The strike train with rack system sounding the hours on a bell, the quarters repeated on command and sounding on six graduated bells and brass-headed hammers.
The backplate with chamfered edge and wide wheatear border framing a symmetrical series of flowerheads within scrolls, signed Jonathan Puller Londini Fecit in a central cartouche. Currently ticking but not striking. 36cms (14ins) high.
The case surmounted by a finely cast silver twin-figural handle over a shallow caddy set to the front and rear with pierced foliate scrolls. The front door with silk-backed sound fret over a pair of silver Knibb-style escutcheons. The sides set with similar sound frets over rectangular glazed panels, the glazed rear door similar, on a moulded base and turned bun feet.
The 6-inch square dial with silvered Roman and Arabic chapter ring, signed between V and VII Jonat. Puller, Londini fecit and interspersed at X and II by the twin silvered subsidiary dials for strike/silent and rise-and-fall-regulation, framed by scroll engraving and set to the lower corners with cherubs-head spandrels. The finely matted centre with mock pendulum and date apertures, with blued steel hands.
The movement plates united by five latched vase-shaped pillars, the backplate with unusual chamfered edge, the going train with pivoted verge escapement to a spring-suspended pendulum terminating in a lenticular bob. The strike train with rack system sounding the hours on a bell, the quarters repeated on command and sounding on six graduated bells and brass-headed hammers.
The backplate with chamfered edge and wide wheatear border framing a symmetrical series of flowerheads within scrolls, signed Jonathan Puller Londini Fecit in a central cartouche. Currently ticking but not striking. 36cms (14ins) high.
Footnotes
Jonathan Puller (c. 1662–c. 1707) was apprenticed to Nicholas Coxeter in 1676, then passed over to John Miller on Coxeter's death in 1679. He was made Free of the Clockmakers' Company in September 1683. He occupied premises in Red Lion Court, close to Thomas Tompion's in Fleet Street. Over the next twenty-four years, he is recorded as having employed eight apprentices. He was made Assistant in 1701 and attended Court until 1707, when he is presumed to have died.
Provenance:
The Carl Barnes Collection.
Once owned by Percy Dawson and illustrated in colour in his encyclopaedic work Dawson, Drover and Parks: Early English Clocks, pages 410, 463, and 481.
Purchased Sotheby's on 4 June 1992.