Montpellier Clocks

JOHN BARWISE (worked from c.1790)
A fine Regency longcase clock (c. 1810 London)

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JOHN BARWISE (worked from c.1790)

A fine Regency domestic regulator of Egyptian design by this highly respected maker. The flame figured mahogany case with panels of burr amboyna has brass capitals to the trunk with ebonised fluted pillars. The hood has an architectural pediment with original brass finials and side frets.

The engraved and silvered 12 inch square dial with large subsidiary seconds dial and strike - silent function signed Barwise London. Blued steel hands. The superb quality, eight day five pillar movement numbered 8803 having substantial shouldered plates, Graham type dead beat escapement, Harrison's maintaining power and strikes the hours on a bell. Original wood rod pendulum with large brass bob and graduated rating nut, original brass cased weights and ebony handle winding key.

Height. 7ft. 4 in. (193 cm)

Date circa 1810


John Barwise 'Chronometer, Watch & Clock Makers to their Royal Highnesses the Dukes of York, Kent, Cumberland & Gloucester' 29 St Martin's Lane, London. John Barwise was the son of a clockmaker from Cockermouth, he is recorded as working in London from circa 1790, a fine maker of clocks, chronometers and watches. A fine table regulator by Barwise is in the Lord Harris Collection at Belmont, and examples of his work are at the Guildhall Museum in London.

Egyptian style furniture was illustrated by the furniture designer Thomas Sheraton in his Encyclopedia of 1804-06. Scholars had always been interested in Egyptian design and after the Battle of the Nile in 1798 public interest grew in all things Egyptian. The designer and patron Thomas Hope designed an Egyptian room at his London home in Duchess Street, it is said to have been one of the most inventive interiors of its date in Europe.