Images(29)

Tall case clock

Dateca. 1810

Possibly by Peter Rife

Possibly by David Whipple

OriginAmerica, Virginia, Pulaski County (probably)

MediumMahogany, cherry, tulip poplar, oak, black walnut, holly, maple, bone, horn, silver, iron, brass, and steel

DimensionsOH: 108 1/2"; OW: 24"; OD: 15"

Credit LineMuseum Purchase

Object number1996-107,A&B

DescriptionDescription:
Hood: Broken scroll pedimented hood with scrolls terminating in deeply carved rosettes; gadrooned carving along top edge of scrolls and returns; central urn shaped finial; two out-curving scrolls with pendant spheres project from the front corners of the hood; inlaid oval in center of tympanum features an eagle surmounted with a shield and holding a ribbon in its beak and arrows and a branch in its claws; inlaid central panel flanked by pierced scrolls (“F” holes) with inset diamond-shaped carving in center and bone inlaid into terminals of scrolls; inlaid scalloped detailing and inlaid geometric banding outlines top and bottom edges of pedimented tympanum respectively; cove molding around midsection of tympanum; lower tympanum section with arched bottom edge and decorative inlaid geometric banding outlining hood door below; two oval inlaid medallions are in corners of lower tympanum section featuring mirrored bellflower designs emanating from a striped shield; glazed, arched door opens on proper left side; four baluster shaped columns flank hood at each corner with carved and inlaid decoration around center of ring turning respectively at top and bottom of baluster as well as brass and silver band around capital; arched windows on hood sides filled with decorative fret backed by silk; decorative inlaid geometric banding along top edge of hood base overtop cove molded bottom edge.

Trunk: Quarter-round-over-cove-molded shoulder molding overtop inlaid decorative geometric banding at top of trunk; rectangular trunk with chamfered front corners decorated with vine and flower lightwood inlay; rectangular door opens on proper left with central oval medallion of inlaid conch shell with a multicolored scalloped edge overtop a vertical ribbon-like motif with three pendant tassels; vine and foliate designs in top corners of door creates gothic arch; flowering witch’s heart motif at bottom corners of door; double bands of lightwood stringing and thumb-molded exterior edge; inlaid chevron banding around base of trunk; cove-molded-over-ogee shaped waist molding.

Base: Rectangular base with chamfered front corners with inlaid vine and foliate design emanating from an urn and surmounted by a pendant half circle inlaid with lightwood dots; veneered front panel laminated to create raised central oval and curved front surfaces; raised center oval inlaid with large foliate pineapple or pinecone design; inlaid geometric banding around top and bottom edge of base; flared, scrolled feet with chamfered and foliate inlaid corners terminate in upturned scrolls and rest on small oval pads; lunette drop in center of skirt on base with foliate design inlaid in lightwood and central element of bone.

Construction: On the hood, the voluted terminals are tenoned in place and their pendants are doweled. The rosettes are flush-mounted to the voluted terminals on the tympanum and secured from the rear with iron screws, which are set against thick leather washers. The tympanum is flush-mounted at the bottom to a leading interior rail and apparently is also held with sliding dovetailed battens on the rear. The multilayered cornice moldings are flush-mounted to the tympanum and the two-ply and veneered outer side panels, which are flush-mounted to the veneered interior side panels. Open dovetails secure the top board to the inner side panels, which are rabbeted at the rear to receive the back board on the trunk. The veneered inner door frame is set into dadoes, while the veneered outer door frame is open tenoned. The fretwork in the openings on the inner side panels is set into rabbets and locked in place by overlapping exterior veneer. Runners on the lower edges of the inner side panels are flush-mounted and probably tenoned. The columns are tenoned in place and nailed at the bottom. They have two-part capitals made of brass and silver.

On the trunk, the two-piece back board is nailed into rabbets. The veneered side panels, which have laminated extensions at the top and bottom to create the curved exterior surfaces, extend into the base and are flush-mounted to the waist moldings. The door has a veneered surface and consists of a single-board core with top and bottom battens and thin laminated strips along the sides. The veneered rails and stiles that frame the door are mortised and tenoned. The top rail and the side panels extend up into the hood area and are framed on the front and sides by thin boards that receive the hood. The stiles are rabbeted to the side panels and fit an angled veneered strip to create the chamfered corners, which are terminated at the top and bottom by small, shaped, flush-mounted blocks.

On the base, the veneered front panel is laminated to create the central raised panel and the curved surfaces. The sides appear to be rabbeted to the front panel. The chamfered corners are created in the same manner as on the trunk. The bottom board is set in a dado at the rear and rests on thin side strips. The leg assemblies are flush-mounted to the underside of the case with no interior blocking or visible nails. The lower part of the legs appears to be tenoned into the upper portion and is additionally flush-glued to the interior surfaces. The feet rest on wooden cores wrapped in sheet brass.

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 thirteen-inch arched dial is made of painted iron. There are blued-steel hour, minute, and seconds hands, a date aperture below the dial center, and a lunar indication in the arch.

The plates are cast brass, and all surfaces have been hammered, filed, and scraped. The visible surfaces have been stoned. Four cast and turned brass pillars are riveted to the backplate and pinned at the front plate. The seat board is attached with screws threaded into the bottom pillars. The brass tube barrels are not grooved and have applied end plates pinned in place. Tailless steel clicks are threaded into the great wheels, and plain brass click springs are riveted in place. Plain brass collets are secured with pins through the barrel arbors, an unusual departure for a British-style movement. The cast-brass wheels are of normal thickness with shorter-than-standard epicycloidal teeth. The center and third wheels are mounted on pinions, and the rest are on large cylindrical collets. There are cut pinions and parallel arbors. The pallets are mounted on a large cylindrical collet. A square steel crutch-rod with an open-ended fork is riveted into the pallet arbor. The back-cock is without steady pins. The pendulum has a square-sectioned steel rod and a four-and-one-eighth-inch brass-faced lead bob. The striking system hammer is located against the backplate; the hammer spring/counter is screwed to the backplate. There is a four-and-three-eighth-inch bell-metal bell whose standard is screwed to the outside of the backplate. The conventional motion work is uncrossed. The minute wheel has a brass pinion of tapered form, an uncommon feature that seems to present a number of technological disadvantages. The bridge is square-ended. There are a twelve-hour date work and a twelve-hour lunar work in the arch. Brass grommets surround the winding holes. Four cast and turned brass dial feet are pinned to the false plate that has four cast-brass feet pinned to the front plate. The pulleys are of brass with steel stirrups.

The pendulum rod is steel. The bob has a polished brass face and is cast with a tinned sheet iron guide cast in the back forming a rectangluar slot to secure the pendulum rod. The weights are cylindrical cast iron with flat bottoms, rounded tops, and cast in iron hooks.

Materials: Mahogany moldings, hood scrolls, feet, hood columns, tops and bottoms on chamfered corners, tympanum veneers, hood veneers, case panel veneers, trunk door veneers, base panel veneers, and foot veneers; cherry hood and case framing members; tulip poplar seat board, back board, and top board; oak bottom board; inlays and mounts of mahogany, black walnut, holly, cherry, maple, bone, horn, silver, and brass; iron, brass, and steel movement.

Label TextThis is one of the most remarkable American tall clocks known. Visually arresting, it is distinguished by its great height and by an ambitious combination of inlays, brass and silver mounts, carcass shaping, and projecting ornaments. According to longstanding oral tradition, the case and the eight-day movement were commissioned around 1809 by Sebastian "Boston" Wygal (1762-1835) of Montgomery (now Pulaski) County in the southern Valley of Virginia. The son of Johannes Weygel, a German-speaking Swiss immigrant who disembarked at Philadelphia in 1750 and moved to the southern backcountry, Sebastian Wygal was a prosperous man who owned a number of slaves and more than two thousand acres of land near Dublin and elsewhere in Montgomery County, Virginia. Since his home was located on the wagon road from Baltimore to Tennessee, Wygal also operated both a tavern and a wagon transport service to Richmond.

Although there is no documentation for the story, generations of Wygal's descendants have recounted that the clock was fashioned locally by cabinetmaker Peter Rife and clockmaker David Whipple. Credence is lent to the attribution by a document that confirms Whipple's existence. An 1806 entry in the accounts of the McGavock Store at Fort Chiswell, Virginia, about fifteen miles from Dublin, notes the cancellation of a debt "By paying Whipple the Clockmaker." A good deal more is known about Peter Rife, who was born in 1762 in Rockland Township, Pennsylvania, and resided in Montgomery County by the 1770s. Records indicate that Rife was a professional woodworker well known for his skill as a millwright. In the 1830s, Rife called on Sebastian Wygal's eldest son, James, to confirm Rife's Revolutionary War service, thus substantiating his long connection with the Wygal family. Rife died in 1858 at the age of ninety-six in adjacent Wythe County.

Complicating the interpretation of the Wygal clock is the fact that the neither the overall form nor most of the disparate design elements can be associated with a particular American or British regional tradition. While many western Virginia clocks share the same monumental stance and exaggerated architectonic proportioning, few are as flamboyant. The design of the case reveals two distinct aesthetic interests on the part of the maker: one rooted in a sophisticated concern for visual order, classical allusions, and meticulous workmanship, and the other revealing a more playful, less disciplined, spirit. Representing the former are the multiple bands of geometric-patterned stringing, the classical urns on the base and trunk, the urn-shaped finial on the hood, and the American eagle motif in the tympanum. In marked contrast to these formal elements are German-American motifs such as the meandering vines on the trunk and base, the flowering witch's hearts at the bottom of the trunk door, and the whimsical inlays above the hood door in which bellflowers emanate from striped shields. Also departing from prim neoclassical standards are the scrolled feet, the projecting hood scrolls with their pendant spheres, and the F-holes in the tympanum, which are clearly derived from those on violins and other string instruments. The merging urban neoclassical designs with local traditions is a hallmark of furniture made in the western part of Virginia during the early national period.

Many of the structural attributes of the clock case are nearly as unusual as the exterior decoration. The main body is built of solid mahogany and mahogany veneers on cherry, an atypical combination, and, unlike many backcountry clocks, nearly all of the case joinery is fully concealed. On both the trunk and base, the artisan incorporated built-up extensions to create a series of lavish curved surfaces. He used few nails (except on the back board) and even fewer of the glue blocks commonly encountered on southern backcountry clock cases. Especially noteworthy is the flush-gluing of the angled and attenuated feet that have no secondary support blocks. In some places, his work borders on the compulsive, particularly in the complexity of the patterned stringing, which far surpasses most contemporary examples.

Objects such as this clock are often considered outside the norms of American craft traditions. Like the products of West Virginia cabinetmaker John Shearer and the Dunlap family in New Hampshire, these goods are labeled "folk" or "naive." They are, instead, clear expressions of the cultural context in which they were made and used.

Inscribed"OSBORNE" is cast into the back of the false plate on the movement. "OSBORNE'S / MANUFACTORY / BIRMINGHAM" is cast into the back of the date wheel.
MarkingsNone
ProvenanceProvenance: According to oral tradition, the clock was made for Sebastian "Boston" Wygal (1762-1835) of Montgomery (now Pulaski) Co., Va. It passed to his grandson and greatnephew, Sebastian "Boston" Wygal Miller (1819-1905), who was unmarried and made a gift of the clock to his nephew, James Shannon Miller, Sr., in 1886. The clock passed to Miller's son, James Shannon Miller, Jr., in 1948. It was sold in April 1996 with the estate of his widow, Mrs. James Shannon Miller, Jr., by Vernon Powell, Jr., Auction Service, Charlottesville, Va.

This clock may have originally been owned by James Hoge of Montgomery County, Virginia. Sebastian Wygal purchased a "Clock & Case" from Hoge's estate in 1812 for $66.25. No other piece of furniture on Hoge's inventory was valued as high. This value was on par with other elegantly inlaid tall case clocks of the time. One Hackensack, New Jersey tall case clock was purchased for $65 in 1810 (#1993-441). The next highest piece of furniture valued on Hoge's estate was "1 Bed Beadstead & furniture @ $30." His waggon and waggon cloth together were $70.

Wygal's own estate inventory taken in 1835 included "1 Clock and Case" valued at $100 that sold at his estate sale for $105. The different values of the Hoge and Wygal clocks could be due to currency variations between 1812 and 1835. However, there is no way to know for certain that both estates referenced the same clock. (Montgomery County, Virginia Will Book 2, pp. 100-107 and Will Book 5, pp. 346-347, 374-376.)

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