Clocktime: Quare's Year Going Boulle Longcase c1695, 02 the Dial

Daniel Quare - Boulle longcase with year-going and striking movement.
Join Dr John C Taylor OBE from the Clocktime digital museum as he discusses the dial on Quare’s Year Going Boulle Longcase, circa 1695.
Discover more about early and antique clocks and watches...
clocktime.co.uk/artefacts/qua...
So, just a look at the dial and the hands. What a beautiful pair of hands. The balance of the year going minute hand balanced on the other side, so as when it comes up, it isn't reducing the weight action and when it comes down it isn't increasing the action, so that it's balanced and helps to uniform the torque of the weight. It's a wonderful pair of hands, the minute hand here decorated with the swirls and it's got a counterbalance weight on this side, so the weight of the finger going up doesn't slow the clock because you probably won't even hear it ticking. I can hardly hear it ticking when I'm right close, you'd think with the huge weights that it would go TICK TOCK but of course if it did that it's wasting energy and it shows that it's not an efficient movement and it wouldn't run for a year. Whereas this very quiet tick with the counterbalance on the minute hand here shows that it is a beautiful precision train. And the lovely engraved and pierced hour hand. The very interesting half hour markers, just plain Arabic minutes with Roman hours and these nice, complicated half hour markers here, it's a combination of elegance, simplicity and quality. And underneath the chapter ring, just on the edge of the dial, you can see this wonderful swirling, flowing engraving, very delicate, almost in contrast to the quite butch finials on each of the corners. And then you've got the polished ends to the arbors for the winding and these ring winding holes which were just about coming into fashion when this was made in 1695.