Description:
Shelf clock with a black-painted case and inscribed "Simon Willard" in a wreathed oval flanked by two gilded figures on the white-painted, kidney-shaped dial in the upper section. The reverse-painted or eglomise door panel on the base is decorated with the inscriptions: "TEMPUS RERUM IMPERATOR" (Time Commands All Things), the motto of the Worshipful Company of Clockmakers of the City of London formed by a Royal Charter in 1631; and: "OPIFER QUE PER ORBEM DICOR" (I am spoken of all over the world as one who brings help), the motto of the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries of the City of London formed in 1617, and its coat of arms with a rhinoceros as the crest (the powdered horn was believed to be medicinal) over Apollo, the Roman god of healing, killing the dragon of disease and supported by two unicorns from the royal arms of King James I. This is the only known American clock to have this decoration. There are also several penciled notes on the inside glass front, the earliest from 1843. 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, Massachusetts, in 1766; when the clockmaker Nathaniel Mulliken Sr. of Lexington, Massachusetts, died in 1767, Benjamin moved there and took over his business, while his younger brothers, Aaron (1757-1844) and Simon, 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 rolls 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. The Willards turned to local sources for parts and decorative elements. Suppliers included John Doggett (1780-1857) of Roxbury who produced such items as gilded 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 rectangular top section has three brass ball finials, the center one on a plinth (moved forward); over a glass paneled door that encloses an eight-day brass recoil mechanism and rack-and-snail strike system, a brass plaque on the back of dial with which to attach the movement to the dial, iron bell with a rectangular hammer, two winding arbors at 9:00 and 3:00, supported on a seatboard; over two front ogee brass feet. The base has a conforming rectangular case with two side brass carrying handles, a heavily molded apron, four ogee bracket feet, and the interior painted a dark blue-green.
Label Text:
George Alfred Cluett (1873-1955), of Troy, New York, and Williamstown, Massachusetts, collected American furniture from around 1901, shortly after he and Edith Tucker were married, through the mid-1920s. Cluett was prominent among early collectors. For the first museum exhibition of American furniture, The Hudson-Fulton Exhibition, opened at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1909, Cluett loaned 22 objects. Cluett, whose family business became Arrow Shirts, finished collecting before Henry Francis DuPont began to amass objects for what became the core of the Winterthur Museum in Delaware. The Cluett family donated most of its collection to Historic Deerfield beginning in 1960, with its last gifts given in 2003. Cluett’s keen connoisseurship, focused on Classical objects (contemporary to his grandparents’ lives) is notable as he collected before the publication of the first seminal reference books on American antiques. Moreover, the early twentieth-century collectors focused on the so-called Pilgrim Century, which predates the Classical era by over one hundred years. Cluett was particularly intrigued by the work of craftsmen including Seymour, McIntire, Phyfe, and Lannuier. Cluett’s desire for privacy, and reverence for times past has long obscured his creative connoisseurship and legacy as one of the earliest and influential collectors of American furniture.
Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+2003.21.1 |
