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Lot Essay
Made for the Chinese market by the London clockmaker John Howlett of Soho, this ‘miniature’ size musical quarter-striking table clock also unusually displays Chinese characters to the case which were almost certainly added on arrival in China.
The clock is from a small group of this type known by Howlett or using the same case maker:
1 - A near pair to this clock was sold through the English horological trade in recent years, of apparently identical size, also with 3 inch dial, the case of the same design but slightly different surface decoration and lacking the Chinese characters of the present clock.
2 - Howlett, when in partnership with Jeffery Horne, also produced a comparable blue enamel decorated miniature musical clock displaying similar case characteristics, formerly in the collection of the renowned Chinese born Swiss horologist and collector Gustave Loup (1876-1899) sold in these rooms, 1 July 2005, lot 124 (£74,400), to the Tom Scott collection (Richard Garnier & Jonathan Carter, The Golden Age, Winchester, 2015, pp. 430-433).
3 - Another probably by the same case maker, with the same domed top, beading and foliate capped feet, with movement supplied by Thwaites and signed Barraud, by repute from the Horace Walpole collection, Strawberry Hill, sold Christie’s, London, 9 April 1987, lot 5; and later from the Lily & Edmond J. Safra collection, Sotheby’s, New York, 21 October 2011, lot 1057 ($386,500 inc.).
John Howlett is listed as ‘Small-worker in Gold, and Enameller, Little Compton St. Soho’, (The Universal British Directory of Trade, Commerce and Manufacture, London, 1791, p. 186). The son of a watchmaker, also John, he moved to Bath circa 1800.
Howlett & Horne were recorded by the Sun Fire Insurance Company, (London Metropolitan Archives MS 11936/413/682120) in 1798 they were listed as ‘John Howlett and Jeffery Horne, at 13 Little Compton Street, Soho, enamellers, watchmakers and goldsmiths’. (Ian White, ‘Gustave Loup’, Antiquarian Horology, volume XXXVI, no. 2, June 2015, pp. 196-197).
The present clock has been in a private collection for over fifty years.
The clock is from a small group of this type known by Howlett or using the same case maker:
1 - A near pair to this clock was sold through the English horological trade in recent years, of apparently identical size, also with 3 inch dial, the case of the same design but slightly different surface decoration and lacking the Chinese characters of the present clock.
2 - Howlett, when in partnership with Jeffery Horne, also produced a comparable blue enamel decorated miniature musical clock displaying similar case characteristics, formerly in the collection of the renowned Chinese born Swiss horologist and collector Gustave Loup (1876-1899) sold in these rooms, 1 July 2005, lot 124 (£74,400), to the Tom Scott collection (Richard Garnier & Jonathan Carter, The Golden Age, Winchester, 2015, pp. 430-433).
3 - Another probably by the same case maker, with the same domed top, beading and foliate capped feet, with movement supplied by Thwaites and signed Barraud, by repute from the Horace Walpole collection, Strawberry Hill, sold Christie’s, London, 9 April 1987, lot 5; and later from the Lily & Edmond J. Safra collection, Sotheby’s, New York, 21 October 2011, lot 1057 ($386,500 inc.).
John Howlett is listed as ‘Small-worker in Gold, and Enameller, Little Compton St. Soho’, (The Universal British Directory of Trade, Commerce and Manufacture, London, 1791, p. 186). The son of a watchmaker, also John, he moved to Bath circa 1800.
Howlett & Horne were recorded by the Sun Fire Insurance Company, (London Metropolitan Archives MS 11936/413/682120) in 1798 they were listed as ‘John Howlett and Jeffery Horne, at 13 Little Compton Street, Soho, enamellers, watchmakers and goldsmiths’. (Ian White, ‘Gustave Loup’, Antiquarian Horology, volume XXXVI, no. 2, June 2015, pp. 196-197).
The present clock has been in a private collection for over fifty years.