Lyon & Turnbull
Lot 536
LATE REGENCY MAHOGANY, EBONY, AND BRASS INLAID MANTEL CLOCK, BY MOLYNEUX, LONDON EARLY 19TH CENTURY the arched case enclosing a cream enamelled dial with Roman numerals, with rubbed maker’s marks, above a brass-lined and inlaid panel flanked by brass flower basket ring handles, above a brass star-inlaid base, raised on a plinth; the twin-train eight-day movement striking a bell, the back plate signed MOLYNEUX/ LONDON (24cm wide, 36cm high, 15cm deep) Footnote: Provenance : The Earls of Crawford and Balcarres, Balcarres House, Fife, Scotland Note : It is unknown when exactly Robert Molyneux came to London to be a pupil of the famous watchmaker Thomas Earnshaw, but around 1800 he went on to establish his own business, and in 1805 he was asked to be an adjudicator on Earnshaw’s inventions, a sign that his skills were highly valued. By the mid-1840s Molyneux had won the first place in the Premium Trials three times, a competition instituted by the Board of Longitude to encourage makers to introduce improvements to chronometers, and his products were used by the British Navy. Although the major part of Molyneux’s business was concerned with watches and chronometers, he also made longcase regulators and some bracket clocks, like the example in this lot.
