Retaining its original fretwork and brass finials, this elegant tall case clock displays a dial inscribed “AARON WILLARD” and his label engraved by Paul Revere attached to the inside of the waist door with instructions on how to wind it. It is of rare small size and features and eight-day movement housed in a case of figured mahogany ornamented with pierced fretwork, brass finials, ogee bracket feet and reeds of satinwood rather than brass in the quarter columns and colonnettes. It also bears a chalk inscription on the lower section of the interior back board in white chalk that apparently reads WM Williams.
A similar tall case clock by Aaron Willard also with a label engraved by Paul Revere on its waist door but with a movement made by Robert Roskell of Liverpool is in the collection of Old Sturbridge Village and illustrated in Philip Zea and Robert Cheney, Clock Making in New England, 1725-1825: An Interpretation of the Old Sturbridge Village Collection, 1992, fig. 2-22, p. 8. Two other nearly identical Aaron Willard clocks in the Old Sturbridge Village Collection were made by a cabinetmaker working with the same fretwork templates (see Zea and Cheney as figs, 2-30 and 232 on pp. 41-2).
PROVENANCE .
Israel Sack Inc., New York
LITERATURE
Israel Sack. Inc. American Antiques from Israel Sack Collection. Volume VIII, P5682, p, 2209.
Mahogany with painted dial and brass finials.
Very fine. There was minor restoration to the fret work and the finials may be replaced.
