Description:
Wall clock or regulator clock with the period iron dial inscribed "Aaron Willard /Jr. / Boston." (heavily restored), but with modern eglomise or reverse-painted panels and other extensive restoration and replacements according to Robert Cheney (see Jan 7, 2000, memo in file). This clock was in the collection of George C. Flynt of Monson, Mass., Henry N. Flynt's father. If a clock was desired to keep accurate time and sent the message of status, the reputation of the Willard family for fine, eight-day timepieces drew patrons from throughout northeastern United States. The eldest brother, Benjamin Willard (1743-1803), was the first of three generations of Willard clock and watch makers who started working in Grafton, Mass., in 1766; when the clockmaker Nathaniel Mulliken Sr. of Lexington, Mass., died in 1767, Benjamin moved there and took over his business, while his younger brothers, Aaron (1757-1844) and Simon (1753-1848), stayed behind in Grafton continuing to make clocks and watch repairs. Simon also experimented with new forms that reduced the size of clock movements, and in 1801, introduced a wall clock with a patented design (patented 1802) with its Patent Timepiece movement, later known as a "banjo" clock. Benjamin Willard set up shop in Roxbury in 1771, followed by Simon and Aaron whose names first appear on the tax roles in 1783, each working in a separate location. Their sons and a grandson continued the profession: Simon's sons, Simon Jr. (1795-1881) opened his own business in Boston in 1828 specializing in manufacturing chronometers and Benjamin (1803-1847) worked with his brother, and Simon Jr.'s son, Zabdiel Adams (1826-after 1911) continued making pocket chronometers; Aaron's sons, Aaron Jr. (1783-1864) took over the business in 1823, which Aaron Sr. had moved to Boston about 1792, and Henry (1802-1887) specialized in making clock cases. Since this was a new clock form, the Willards had to turn to local sources for parts and decorative elments. Suppliers included John Doggett (1780-1857) of Roxbury who produced such items as gilt eagles, brackets or pedestals, balls, swags, and painted tablets for patent pieces, and William Hunneman who provided castings of "side pieces", bezels for the round glass, and wheel blanks. Decorative painters of dials and glass tablets such as Charles Bullard (1794-1871), Spenser Nolan, and John Ritto Penniman (1782–1841) had to understand pigments, varnish, and how to conceive their works "backwards"; the earliest style of ornamental painting on patent timepieces was delicate, geometric, and non-pictorial; floral motifs were featured later, followed by romantic imagery framed by linear borders; and then biblical, mythological and military themes. This banjo-shaped clock has a replaced brass eagle finial; round white-painted period dial that has had extensive restoration on the black roman numerals and signature, but has a period brass bezel; triangular-shaped throat outlined in half-round molding and a reverse-painted glass panel decorated with sailing boats on a river and a house in the background, which conceals the flat mahogany pendulum rod that is a replacement and weight; carved side brackets;and pendulum box with a reverse-painted glass panel decorated with a man fishing on a river bank. The clock has an eight-day brass and steel movement, with a "3" stampled on the front plate. According to Cheney, the "mahogany veneer on pine panels were probably used originally for the box and waist sections; 75 year old varnish finish; box elements reglued; weight and brass tie-down probable replacements"; and "rectangular movement with step train layout, maintaining power, original steel 'through' bolts for attachment to the case now gone; maintaining power, all regulated by a second's beat pendulum rod and brass-faced, lead-backed pendulum bob and powered by an iron weight."
Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+82.086 |
