Images(7)

Tall case clock

Date1805-1815

Artist/Maker Caleb Davis (1769-1834)

OriginAmerica, Virginia, Rockingham County

MediumMahogany, yellow pine, oak, satinwood, ebony, maple, glass, iron, brass, and steel.

DimensionsOH: 106 1/2"; OW: 20"; OD: 10 1/4"

Credit LineMuseum Purchase

Object number1974-677,A&B

DescriptionAppearance: Tall case clock with broken scroll pediment with veneered rosettes and central plinth for turned urn and spire finial (replaced); wide tympanum inlaid with trailing flowers and two eagle oval medallions flanking a light and dark swag; arched glazed hood door flanked by square columns tapering upwards; hood sides inlaid with string ovals flanked by front and rear columns with arch between; columns inlaid with cuffs at top and base, light wood on corners; white painted dial with Arabic hour and minute numerals, two winding holes, blank triangular painted spandrels, hemispheres and painted moon dial; wide coved shoulder molding over an inlaid dentil frieze over a rectangular trunk door surrounded by cockbeading and inlaid with rectangular stringing with inset corners and inlaid eagle oval medallion at center; flanking trunk door at corners are lightwood rectangular veneered panels that are the same height as the trunk door and outlined in geometric banding; wide cove waist molding sandwiched between geometric banding around trunk base and around top of clock base; base panel inlaid with a central rectangular urn and foliage panel, a rectangular geometric stringing with inset corners flanked by lightwood panels outlined with geometric banding at corners of base; geometric banding delineates bottom of base; scalloped skirt on front and sides with pendant half circle in center of front skirt inlaid with a light and dark wood fan and swags; flaring French feet; entire clock covered in geometric banding on most corners and edges.

Construction: On the hood, the top board is dovetailed to veneered inner side panels that are rabbeted at the rear to receive the back board. The veneered outer side panels are secured to the inner side panels with wrought nails. The solid front columns are mortised and tenoned into the frame, and the rear columns are similarly joined but placed into open mortises at the top, which makes them removable. The cornice moldings are glued to the veneered pediment, which is additionally backed by a large shaped block that is nailed in place and extends down to form the door arch. The inner door frame has an applied, quarter-inch-thick mahogany facade and is toe-nailed in place with four small cut nails. The veneered and glazed outer door frame rotates on flat brass hinges. Inlaid moldings are glued to the leading edge of runners. The inner side panels are double through-tenoned into runners.

On the trunk, the back board is nailed into rabbeted case sides, with butt-joined extensions in the wider hood and base areas. The mahogany cornice molding and its yellow pine core are glued in place. The veneered side panels, which have flush-mounted horizontal battens set every fifteen inches, extend above the cornice to support the seat board, as do veneered front stiles that are mortised and tenoned to rails and set into rabbets on the case sides. Small chamfered glue blocks run up the interior corners. Triangular corner blocks and rectangular blocks surround the inner door frame. Since they do not support anything, their function is unclear. The veneered door swings on brass butt hinges. The two-part coved waist molding has a yellow pine core and is glued to the top of the base and to the trunk.

The veneered base sides are rabbeted to receive the nailed-on front panel, although the joint is covered by veneer. The bottom board is either dovetailed or nailed into rabbets on the bottom of the case sides, and the joint is covered by small glue blocks. The stiles and side panels extend below the base and form foot blocks to which flared foot facades are glued. The back board also extends below the base and is shaped to form an arched rear foot bracket, an approach found on other central Valley of Virginia furniture forms. The front base panel extends below to form a shaped skirt.

The clock features an eight-day, weight-driven tall case movement with an anchor-recoil escapement regulated by a seconds-beating pendulum. A rack-and-snail striking system sounds the hours on a bell. The fourteen-and-one-eighth-inch arched dial is made of painted iron. There are blued-steel hour and minute hands, and a lunar indication in the arch.

The plates are cast brass with semicircular cutouts at the bottom. All surfaces have been hammered, filed, scraped, and stoned. Four cast and turned brass pillars are riveted to the backplate and pinned at the front plate. The seat board is attached with hooks over the bottom pillars. The cast-brass barrels are not grooved. Tailless steel clicks are threaded into the great wheels, and plain brass click springs are screwed in place. The decorative brass collets are held in place with pins through the barrel arbors. The cast-brass wheels are of normal thickness with coarsely cut teeth of no particular form. They have four-arm crossings. The second and third wheels are mounted on pinions, the rest on decorative, stepped brass collets. There are cut pinions and tapered arbors. The escape wheel is positioned at the center of the plates to give sweep seconds for the dial. The pallets are mounted on a plain, D-shaped, stepped collet. The back-cock has two steady pins. The pendulum has a round-sectioned steel rod and a five-inch-diameter brass-faced lead bob. The striking system hammer is located against the backplate, and the combination hammer spring/counter is screwed to the backplate. There is a four-and-one-half-inch bell-metal bell. Its standard is screwed to the inside of the backplate. The extended front pivot of the second wheel arbor carries the boat-spring and the first wheel of the uncrossed motion work. This wheel drives the minute wheel, which in turn drives the cannon wheel, all of similar size. The minute wheel is mounted on a start and has a brass pinion that drives the hour wheel. The escape wheel arbor passes through to the dial to carry the sweep-seconds hand directly. The bridge is square-ended. Four cast and turned brass dial feet are secured directly to the front plate. There are brass grommets around the winding holes. Wooden pulleys with steel wire stirrups carry the fourteen-pound, cast iron, cylindrical weights.

Materials: Mahogany hood moldings, columns, inner door facade, cock beading on hood arches and trunk door frame, foot facades, tympanum veneer, hood door veneer, hood side panel veneers, trunk sides veneers, stile veneers, rail and door veneers, and base veneers; yellow pine seat board, top board, hood side panel cores, inner hood door frame, pediment ground, runners, trunk side panel cores, rail and stile cores, back board flankers, trunk door core, and glue blocks; oak back board and battens on trunk side panels; satinwood, ebony, maple, and possibly other inlays; iron, brass, and steel movement.
Label TextNearly nine feet in height, this commanding tall clock was made in the central Valley of Virginia at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Originally owned by Captain Jacob Lincoln (d. 1822), it was probably used at his farm in Rockingham County near Harrisonburg. A number of other boldly neoclassical case pieces by the same unidentified cabinetmaker have been recorded. They include two equally lofty clock cases with histories in the Rockingham vicinity, a desk and bookcase and a bow-front corner cupboard that also descended in the Lincoln family, and a secretary and bookcase now at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (accession 1979-73). Oral tradition holds that the Lincoln furniture was built on the family farm by an itinerant woodworker named Schultz or Scholz. No artisans of that name have been found, however, and it is unlikely anyone except a craftsman with an established cabinet shop could have accomplished work of this quality and complexity. The population growth in the Valley during this period and the region's role as a leading grain producer certainly provided the economic environment necessary to support the operation of full-fledged cabinet shops.

The skill of the cabinetmaker is reflected in the ornamentation and meticulous interior construction of these objects. On the CWF clock, all exposed surfaces are covered with veneer, effectively concealing the case joinery. To provide a more stable ground for the veneers, the craftsman added flush-mounted rails to the interior surfaces of the trunk sides, a time-consuming but worthwhile step. Many of the inlaid decorations, including the patterned stringing, the pediment rosettes, the eagles, and the foliage-filled urn, were imported from inlay makers in Baltimore. They were used freely alongside locally produced inlays such as the floral sprays in the tympanum. The Baltimore-made fan on the skirt was even augmented with a central flower and swags that undoubtedly are Valley products. To complete the decorative scheme, the craftsman applied panels of costly imported satinwood to the corners of the trunk and base in place of the usual quarter-columns or chamfers.

The front plate behind the dial is signed by Maryland-born Caleb Davis (b. 1769), a prominent clockmaker who moved to Woodstock, Virginia, in the 1790s and remained there until 1816. An important market town and the seat of Shenandoah County, Woodstock is about thirty miles northeast of the Lincoln family farm. One of the additional two clock cases noted above also houses a Davis movement; the other has works attributed to Jacob Fry (w. 1791-1814), Davis's one-time business partner. The Davis movement in the CWF clock is an eight-day, hour-strike system that was obviously produced locally rather than imported. The wheel collets are thin at the front and become progressively thicker before tapering off sharply at the rear, a German-American approach that differs considerably from the British method. Like those on many American clocks, Davis's barrels are ungrooved. The lack of a false plate suggests that even the painted dial may be American. Now entirely repainted, physical evidence indicates that the original coating on the dial was largely lost to rust damage at an early date. The same fate befell the dial on the Fry movement, suggesting that the sheet iron plates were improperly prepared before paint was applied. It is unlikely that such errors would have occurred with imported British dials, which were made by experienced workers in efficient manufactories.

Inscribed"Cale_ Davis" is scratched into the front of the front plate at bottom center, and "Henry W. Kring Nov. 8 1830" is scratched into the lower right corner. "Jonathan Marshall / East Weare, N.H. / Feb. 24th 1848," probably the mark of an itinerant clock repairer, is penciled on the inner face of the door. Painted on the top of the back board in mid-nineteenth-century script is an illegible name and "Staunton."
MarkingsNone.
ProvenanceThis clock was one of twelve pieces of furniture sold at a Sotheby Parke Bernet auction in 1974. Owned by Dr. Edmund Horgan of Winchester, Va., the pieces all had a tradition of ownership by Capt. Jacob Lincoln, who lived on Linville Creek near Harrisonburg. The pieces had remained in the Lincoln and Pennybacker families until Horgan purchased them. CWF was the successful bidder at the Horgan auction.

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