Images(7)

Tall Case Clock

Dateca. 1810

Attributed to William King Jr. (1771 - 1854)

Attributed to Thomas Brentnall

Signed by W. C. & J. Nicholas

OriginAmerica, District of Columbia, Washington, Georgetown and England, Birmingham

MediumMahogany, tulip poplar, yellow pine, and glass; brass, steel, and iron

DimensionsOverall: 238.8 x 51.8 x 25.4cm (94 x 20 3/8 x 10in.)

Credit LineMuseum Purchase

Object number2015-269,A

DescriptionAppearance: Tall case clock with arched white painted dial and an 8-day movement; hood with broken arch pediment with pierced fret (partially missing) beneath the scrolls that terminate in rondules; central plinth with urn shaped finial (original); hood door flanked by round columns at front and rear of hood; simple cove moldings below hood above plain frieze at top of trunk; rectangular trunk door with applied molding outlining edge and about 1" in from edge of door; ogee molding at top of base; base outlined with applied molding; scalloped front and side skirts and straight French feet (partially missing).

Dial:
The 13 ¼”, one piece, arched iron dial is painted white with an oval seated portrait of a lady in a blue and white dress with a stick in her hand by water in the arch surrounded by painted beadwork and flanked by scrolls; pink flowers with green leaves painted in the spandrels; Arabic numerals for the hour numerals and second numerals (in 15, 30, 60 second intervals outside hour dial); "Brentnall" and "Sutton" painted above the winding holes; smaller dials above and below main hands, upper dial for seconds, lower dial for date. There are steel hour, minute, seconds, and calendar hands.

Movement:
Eight-day brass weight-driven movement measuring 6.75” H x 4.625” W. Plate thickness is 0.122” and clearance between front and back plates is 2.3”. Clock has an anchor-recoil escapement regulated by a seconds beat pendulum. A rack-and-snail strike sounds the hours on a 4” cast bell. The cast iron dial false plate has “W C & J Nicholas” cast at the top in block letters and “Birmingham” cast at the bottom in cursive.

Four brass pillars are riveted into the back plate and pinned at the front plate. The movement is fastened to the seat board by steel hooks that hook over the bottom movement pillars and are fastened under the seat board by nuts. The brass tube time and strike barrels are grooved for the weight cords. The steel clicks are threaded into the great wheels, and plain brass click springs are riveted in place. All time and strike train wheels have four-arm crossings. The time second wheel has a tapered steel arbor. All other wheel arbors are straight. The round steel crutch-rod has a closed-end fork. The pendulum bridge base is a butterfly shape. It is screwed to the back plate with two screws and two locator pins. The bell stand is screwed to the outside of the back plate. The conventional motion work is uncrossed.

Pendulum bob is cast lead (or non-ferrous metal) with a brass face. Weights are cylindrical cast iron with cast in metal hooks. The weight pulleys are cast brass. The strike weight pulley has four cast holes.

Construction: On the hood, the sides are nailed from inside to the overlapping upper side panels that are in turn half-blind dovetailed to the tympanum. The top is nailed from the top to the upper side panels and the tympanum. The sides are tenoned into the side rails of the bottom frame with the front-most tenons extending into the frame’s front rail. The bottom frame sides are tenoned into the front rail. The top of the interior face frame behind the door is screwed from behind to a ¾” spacer board that is glued and possibly screwed to the back of the tympanum. The stiles of the face frame are joined to the sides by a series of quarter round glue blocks. The face frame rests on and is glued to the back upper edge of the bottom frame. The columns and their integral capitols are nailed from below to the bottom frame rails and glued to the underside edge of the upper side panels.

The upper molding is glued to the tympanum and the upper side panels. A flat molding is glued to the upper surface of the molding on the sides and is mitered and glued to the fret boards and their supporting blocks. The lower molding is glued to the edges of the bottom frame.

Fret boards on each side are laminated to molded scrolls which form a broken pediment terminating with applied mahogany rondels. The fret boards are nailed and glued to the upper surface of the upper molding and to chamfered glue blocks that are also nailed glued to the upper molding. The bottom edge of the fret boards terminate in dados in each side of the center plinth which originally also held other now missing sections of the fret work. The center plinth is glued to the upper surface of the upper molding and to a rectangular glue block that is in turn glued to the upper surface of the hood top. A turned vase finial is glued to the plinth.

The top and bottom rails of the hood door are through tenoned into the stiles, and are rabbeted on the inside to receive the glass panel. The glass is secured with full length triangular blocks on the straight edges and three 1” blocks on the curved upper surface. The hinges are screwed to the underside of the tympanum, the front rail of the bottom frame and the ends of the proper left stile. The hood door is veneered with cross-grained mahogany.

Hood surfaces are all mahogany.

The full length tulip poplar backboard, with added flankers at the hood and base, is nailed into rabbets in the mahogany trunk sides that are in turn glued into rabbets in the stiles. The rabbet joint s are reinforced with a series of chamfered glue blocks. Upper flankers are nailed to the edges of the back while lower flankers are nailed into rabbets in the base sides. The trunk sides extend into the hood area and support the seat board, the upper flankers are rabbeted to form a slot to receive the sides. Rectangular strips 1”wide are nailed to the sides ¾” above the shoulder molding to form guides for the bottom rails of the hood. A side to side batten is nailed inside the back at the level with the shoulder molding.

The trunk upper and lower rails are tenoned into the stiles. The trunk’s mitered shoulder molding, which is glued in place, consists of a mahogany façade flush-mounted to a core of butt joined triangular glue blocks. A small mitered bead molding is glued and nailed in place immediately below the shoulder molding, with an identical molding 2” below it.

The trunk door is comprised of a mahogany board with batten ends. Mahogany veneer is nailed and glued to all four edges. The door front is edged with moldings (identical to those on the trunk) inside of which us a 1” mitered band of cross grained mahogany veneer surrounding a second identical frame that in turn surrounds a figured mahogany veneer panel.

On the base, the mahogany sides are joined to the front with a series of chamfered glue blocks, and nailed to the back from the back. The upper edge of the front is secured with glue blocks to the bottom edge of the case lower rail. The ogee waist molding with a core of triangular glue blocks is glued to the lower front and sides of the trunk, and to the upper edge of the front and sides of the base. The joints are reinforced with a series of interior chamfered glue blocks. The bottom board is dovetailed to the sides. The base front is of tulip poplar veneered with a panel of figured mahogany framed with a bead molding and edged with a mitered veneer of cross grained mahogany.

The foot assembly is tulip poplar of dovetail construction with shaped skirts on the front and sides and angular brackets in the back. Original front feet were probably integral with applied mahogany flared feet glued in place. The assembly is joined to the base bottom with a series of rectangular chamfered glue blocks. Above the foot assembly, the base molding is 1/8” mahogany string veneer.
Label TextThis tall case clock descended in the family of cabinetmaker William King of Georgetown, District of Columbia (now Maryland). Oral history within the family records that King received the clock’s works from the widow of a destitute clockmaker or retailer in exchange for a coffin and/or funerary services. As no other clocks by King are known, we can only assume that King’s shop made the clock to house these works. But as the design and construction of the case does relate to the work of John Shaw of Annapolis, with whom King apprenticed, it is likely by King. Like the clock from the Shaw shop, choice solid mahogany boards were used for the long case door and solid rather than veneered boards were used for the case sides.

The movement, labeled “Brentnall” and “Sutton” on the dial, was made by Thomas or possibly William Brentnall of Sutton Coldfield, England.

Colonial Williamsburg owns three other pieces of furniture by King: a sofa (1994-137, 1), side chair (1994-137, 2), and card table (1994-106). Each of these is slightly later in date than the clock. Tall case clocks of this date by Washington, DC makers are very rare and this is the only one attributed to King.
InscribedScratched into the front of the brass front plate, "By H Kriek/ 3053 M St Wash DC/ Ap 10-28". And in pencil on the top of the seat board "H Krick/ 3053 M st Wash/DC" with a possible date below that is illegible.

Harris Krieg was listed as a jeweler in the Washington DC 1920 city directory at 3053 M nw. (BOYD'S DIRECTORY OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA 1920 (Washington, DC: R. L. Polk & Co, 1920), p. 910))

"No 1848" scratched on back of pendulum bob.
Markings"Brentnall" and "Sutton" painted above the winding holes.

Cast into the back of the iron dial plate "W C & J NICHOLAS/ Birmingham" for William, Caleb, and Joshua Nicholas.
ProvenanceDescended in the family of cabinetmaker William King to client of vendor.

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