"The Poyntz Tompion" A very fine and rare Queen Anne miniature Phase 2 striking table clock c1707

The Poyntz Tompion, No.457
Circa 1707
A very fine and rare Queen Anne miniature Phase 2 ebony and gilt-brass mounted striking table clock with pull-quarter repeat by Thomas Tompion & Edward Banger, London
Height
10¼ inches (261 mm)
Case
The well-proportioned miniature Phase 2 case with ebony veneers and mouldings onto an oak carcass. The cushion-moulded top is surmounted by a well cast thistle-bud handle with rosette terminals. The front door is applied with Tompion’s gilt-brass foliate cast sound fret to the top rail, while the uprights are applied with typical foliate-cartouche escutcheons, the sides inset with matching gilt-brass frets above the glazed apertures, and a D-moulded glazed door to the rear. The front door sill is clearly punch-numbered 457 twice, below the mask that is inset with a further pierced-wood sound fret. The front and rear door retain their original locks and hinges and the whole case is raised on conforming ebony mouldings and typical block feet.
Dial
The 4¾ x 5¼ inch gilt-brass dial by Graver 195, is signed Tho Tompion & Edw Banger London within foliate engraving and flanked by subsidiary dials for strike/silent and pendulum regulation. The silvered chapter ring has Roman hours with sword-hilt half-hour marks between, the Arabic minutes with cross half-quarter markers. The finely matted centre has a mock pendulum aperture with the original finely pierced and sculpted blued steel hands, with mask-and-foliate spandrels in the lower dial quadrant with double screws in Tompion’s manner, the foliate upper quadrant spandrels abutting the subsidiary rings. The three dial feet are typically latched to the inside of the front plate.
Duration
8 days
Movement
The substantial miniature movement held by seven latched finned baluster pillars, with spring barrels, twin fusees and gut lines. The going train with pivoted verge escapement and brass rod lenticular pendulum spring-suspended from a pivoted curved brass regulation bar with pinion adjustment atop the plates, all with foliate engraved cocks. The strike train governed by rack-and-snail sounding the hours on the larger bell, the quarters struck on the smaller bell using Tompion’s own fail-safe system, with double-cocked interlocking blued steel levers, pulled from either side of the case. The backplate, by Graver 195, has very fine quality foliate engraving centred by a Martian trophy above the signature cartouche signed Tho Tompion & Edw Banger London, the cartouche is further flanked by two bare-breasted seraphim. The base of the backplate is clearly numbered 457 just beneath the scored line border. The movement is secured in the case in Tompion’s usual manner with two steel bolts through the baseboard into the bottom pillars and by two foliate engraved backplate brackets.
Escapement
Pivoted verge with spring-suspended pendulum
Strike Type
Hour strike with Tompion’s own pull-quarter repeat
Provenance
The Reverend NCS Poyntz, of Dorchester Abbey, Oxon;
Sotheby’s, London, 11 July 1941, lot 88, sold to Malcolm Gardner (dealer);
Private collection USA, until sold 2014;
John C Taylor Collection, inventory no.80
Exhibited
1948, Goldsmiths & Silversmiths Company, Antique Dealers’ Fair, London
Literature
Symonds, A book of English clocks, 1947, plates 45a & 47;
Symonds, Thomas Tompion his life and work, 1951, p.206, fig.198;
Evans, Thomas Tompion Evans, Dial & Three Crowns, 2006, listed, p.80;
Evans, Carter and Wright, Thomas Tompion 300 Years, 2013, p.364-365, listed p.606;
Garnier & Carter, Golden Age of English Horology, 2016, Tompion’s miniature and mid-sized series of domestic table clocks, p.144-149
The early 1690s were a particularly busy and fruitful time for Thomas Tompion’s workshops, he had upgraded his designs of domestic clocks and he was also working on a number of Royal commissions. These included the year-going spring-driven Mostyn Tompion and the silver-cased balance/pendulum-control campaign clock, both for William III, as well as no.222, the smallest of his wooden cased table clocks, probably commissioned for Queen Mary. It may be that the commissioning of no.222 encouraged Tompion to offer smaller sizes of standard table clocks incorporating his superb pull quarter repeat system but, whatever the reason, from c.1693 Tompion first began to produce miniature versions of his striking and repeating table clocks.
This was not the first time that Tompion had successfully tackled clocks of smaller dimensions, testimony being the beautiful harlequin pair of table clocks of c.1683, no.21 (Fitzwilliam Museum, obj. M.3-1965), and the Lonsdale Tompion no.23, although he housed these extraordinary timepieces in gilt-brass and blued-steel cases. A year or so later Tompion then produced two standard wooden cased Phase 1 timepieces in miniature, nos.47 and 51.
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