A RARE CHARLES II BRASS QUARTER-STRIKING LANTERN CLOCK BY RICHARD AMES, LONDON, CIRCA 1675–1680

A RARE CHARLES II BRASS QUARTER-STRIKING LANTERN CLOCK BY RICHARD AMES, LONDON, CIRCA 1675–1680, signed to the foliate and tulip-engraved dial centre ‘Richard Ames Neare St Andrews Church In Holburn Fecit’, with a later Roman chapter ring and pierced steel hands, fronting a substantial posted brass frame with turned finials, pierced foliate frets and a strapped domed bell. The three-train weight-driven movement, now with later anchor escapement, strikes the quarters on two subsidiary bells beneath the principal hour bell and the hours on the larger bell.

Richard Ames (c.1634–1682) was apprenticed in 1648 to Peter Closon, one of the leading London lantern-clock makers of the mid-17th century. He gained his freedom of the Clockmakers’ Company in 1657 and established his workshop near St Andrew’s Church, Holborn, later serving as Master of the Company.

The unusual three-train movement was constructed to accommodate the quarter-striking complication, with generously spaced trains and separate hammer work for the two subsidiary quarter bells and principal hour bell. Quarter-striking lantern clocks survive in considerably smaller numbers than conventional two-train, hour-striking examples and represent one of the more technically advanced forms of Restoration lantern-clock construction.

The movement closely relates in its spacious frame, three-train arrangement and quarter-striking work to clocks produced within the circle of Peter Closon and his contemporaries. Ames’s apprenticeship to Closon provides a direct workshop connection with this advanced school of London lantern-clock making.

For related quarter-striking movements, see George White, English Lantern Clocks, pp. 154–157, illustrating examples by Peter Closon, Ahasuerus Fromanteel and Thomas Milles. See also Brian Loomes, Lantern Clocks & Their Makers, pp. 228–229, for the quarter-chiming lantern clock by John Knibb of Oxford with a comparable three-train arrangement and subsidiary bells.

45cm high