A ROYAL WORCESTER PLAQUE painted by G Johnson, signed, with a ginger kitten in a purple ribbon with a bow, seated before an empty dish, 23.5 x 15cm, printed mark and date code for 1925 George Johnson, who was employed at the Worcester factory from at least 1883 specialised in the painting of birds, in particular the exotic or fancy birds on replicas of 18th c `Dr Wall` scale blue ground wares. The present plaque is highly unusual for its charming cat subject and was perhaps made to special order. In his spare time he painted both oils and watercolours and was according to Sandon a "master in his own field". He had retired by 1933 and died in 1938 (see H Sandon, Royal Worcester Porcelain from 1862 to the Present Day, 1973, p96). In fine condition free from damages, scratches or other faults. No restoration in what is possibly the original 18th c style gilt frame and mount. For many years in the present private vendor`s family`s ownership
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CHARLES ANSELL (?) (1752-?) THE DANGER OVER OR BILLY`S RETURN TO JOHN BULL (BM 9225) AND BLOODY NEWS-BLOODY NEWS OR THE FATAL PUTNEY DUEL (BM 9218) etchings in fresh contemporary colour, published by S W Fores, June 4th 1798 and May 26 1798, the both watermarked 1797, 36 x 25.5cm and 25.5 x 41cm and three other caricatures including another of Pitt, comprising Charles Williams, THE EX-MINISTER AND THE METEOR (BM 10235) April 13th 1804, Isaac Cruikshank - CHURCH PROMOTION, OR HOW TO SCALE A PULPIT! (BM 11224), Febry. 25 1809 and John Cawse (?), A PLEASANT DRAUGHT FOR LOUIS... (BM 12268) [?May 1814] unframed (5) Variable condition - defects all visible on the scans of all 5, available on request. Mostly trimmed to, or within, platemark
GEORGE GOODWIN KILBURNE, RI (1839-1924) A TENDER PLANT signed and dated 1876, pencil and watercolour heightened with white, 45 x 34.5cm A highly characteristic, beautifully preserved, large scale example of Kilburne`s highly detailed watercolour technique, in early 20th c giltwood and composition frame. Long in the present private family`s ownership
19th Century Anglo-Indian mother-of-pearl, abalone shell and brass inlaid hardwood cased stick barometer by T. Wheelhouse of Hatton Garden, London, shaped arch pediment, allover foliate bird and ribbon decoration, ivory register plates with double rack and pinion Vernier scale, fahrenheit and Reaumer thermometer, cushion shaped cistern cover, 114cm high.
Rare mid 18th Century brass mounted mahogany horse measure by Robert Wogdon of London, engraved brass scale measuring both hands and inches and dated 1765, sliding level with engraved brass plate inscribed `Wogdon, Cockspur Street, Charring Cross, London` and another inscribed `Wogdon - Gun Maker`, 113.5cm high. Robert Wogdon in partnership with John Barton was to become one of the most eminent gunsmiths in 18th Century London. They were famed for the manufacture of dueling pistols to the extent that duels in England were sometimes referred to as `A Wogdon Affair`. This measure pre-dates that partnership by 30 years.
William James Blacklock (1816-1858), an oil on canvas, "Blea Tarn and The Langdale Pikes". 17.5 ins x 23.25 ins, signed and dated 1854. . William James Blacklock 1816-1858THE LANGDALE PIKES ABOVE BLEA TARN1854It is no exaggeration to say that William James Blacklock is one of the great landscape painters of the nineteenth century, and perhaps the most remarkable of all of those who devoted themselves to the representation of the Lake District. He is less well known than he should be – the modern ‘rediscovery’ of the artist commenced in 1974 with an insightful article in Country Life by the late Geoffrey Grigson (‘A Painter of the Real Lakeland’, 4 July 1974, pp. 24-26), and was carried forward in a ground-breaking exhibition at Abbott Hall in Kendal, organised by Mary Burkett in 1981 – but on other occasions he has been omitted from landscape surveys, perhaps because of the very individuality of his work which makes them difficult immediately to characterise or readily to place in conjunction with those of his contemporaries. Nonetheless, Blacklock is a most fascinating and rewarding artist, who in the last half-decade or so of his tragically short life painted a small handful of masterpieces which serve as a testament to his deep love and knowledge of Cumberland and the English Lakes.The Blacklock family had been long established in the neighbourhood of Cumwhitton, to the south west of Carlisle, farming there at least since the 1500s. W.J. Blacklock’s father was in fact living in London, where he made his living as a bookseller and publisher, at the time of the painter’s birth, but returned to Cumberland in 1818. The younger Blacklock’s career as an artist commenced when he was apprenticed to the Carlisle engraver and lithographer Charles Thurnham, with whom he later collaborated on a series of prints showing the railway line between Newcastle and Carlisle. W.J. Blacklock enrolled for a period at the Carlisle Academy of Arts, prior to its closure in 1833, working under Matthew Ellis Nutter. In 1836 he returned to London, then aged twenty, living there for the following fourteen years. How he occupied himself at this stage is not known, nor is it clear whether he could rely on the sale of works for a livelihood. Works by him – generally showing north-country landscapes – were exhibited at the Royal Academy and British Institution. Clearly he gained some reputation on the metropolitan artistic scene, as his landscape paintings were commented upon enthusiastically by J.M.W. Turner, David Roberts and John Ruskin. Much concerning Blacklock’s career, and especially the question of his contact with other artists, is a matter of speculation. His name is largely absent from the diaries, correspondence and memoirs of the Pre-Raphaelite circle, the members of which were in any case much younger than him, but Blacklock would certainly have seen early works exhibited by members of the group and their associates. We know that he was in contact with William Bell Scott, headmaster of the Government School of Design in Newcastle, and who was in turn a close friend of Dante Gabriel Rossetti. It was almost certainly by Scott’s introduction or recommendation that Blacklock built up a circle of patrons in the North East. Scott and Rossetti may have hoped to meet Blacklock on the occasion of a walking tour they made together from Newcastle to Carlisle in June 1853. Scott, who like Rossetti was a poet as well as a painter, seems to have recorded a vain attempt to visit the painter in a poem entitled ‘An Artist’s Birthplace’, published in 1854. The verse describes the arrival of two men at the cottage home of a painter who may clearly be recognised as Blacklock: A fit place for an artist to be reared;Not a great Master whose vast unshared toils,Add to the riches of the world, rebuildGod’s house, and clothe with Prophets walls and roof,Defending cities as a pastime – suchWe have not! but the homelier heartier handThat gives us English landscapes year by year.There is his small ancestral home, so gay,With rosery and green wicket. We last metIn London: I’ve heard since he had returnedHomeward less sound in health than when he reached That athlete’s theatre, well termed the graveOf little reputations. Fresh againLet’s hope to find him.The verse corroborates what sparse biographical information we have for the painter (and which derives principally from an article in the Glasgow Evening News, 25 July 1900, entitled ‘An Artist’s Career’ and contributed by Edward Pennington presumably on the basis of information received from the artist’s family, despite forty-two years having passed since his death): the painter had returned to Cumberland because his health was deteriorating, probably as a result of syphilis, but also – according to Scott’s account – because of the professional frustrations and commercial pressures that went with trying to work as an artist in London. In 1850 Blacklock seems to have engaged in a last determined bout of activity as a landscape artist, perhaps fearing that he had not many years remaining to him and wanting to put together a group of works in which his particular artistic principles were to be defined. This small corpus – consisting of views in the Lakes and countryside around Cumwhitton, and all made in a period of about four years – serve as his lasting memorial. Paintings such as Devock Water (Abbott Hall, Kendal), of 1853, and Catsbells and Causey Pike (Tullie House Art Gallery, Carlisle), of 1854, represent timeless images of particular places which speak of the painter’s love for the landscape that he was representing. The present view is of the Langdale Pikes, seen beyond Blea Tarn, and therefore from a vantage-point looking towards the north west, and with the direction of afternoon light from behind the artist’s left shoulder. A shoreline of purple heather and strewn boulders forms the foreground, with a brown-coated fisherman on the left side. E. Lynn Linton, in his book The Lake Country (1864), used an engraving of the same view by W.J. Linton to head his chapter ‘Langdale and the Stake’, describing in his text the mountains seen from this vantage-point at ‘the back of Blea Tarn’: ‘the highest to the right is Harrison Stickle, that to the left Pike o’ Stickle, and the long sweep to the right of Harrison Stickle is Pavey Ark, in the cup or lip of which lies Stickle Tarn’. Harriet Martineau in her 1855 Complete Guide to the English Lakes invoked the place as the scene of one of Wordsworth’s Excursions to dwell upon the Solitary, and also described the remoteness of the location and the ‘very rough road [that] scrambles up from Langdale, by Wall End, to the upland vale where the single farmhouse is, and the tarn’.The atmospheric effect of the painting is beautifully observed, with the forms of the mountain partly suffused in shadow but with other areas brightly lit as cloud shadows sweep over, and with clefts and exposed rock faces recorded with painstaking attention. Blacklock’s particular mastery in the treatment of mountain landscapes depended in great part on his understanding of the constantly fluctuating quality of light, and here especially the scale and structure of the distant ranges are given volumetric expression by the graduated fall of light. Thus the mountain range seems both massive and distant, but at the same times almost tangible and lending itself to close and detailed scrutiny. Martineau commented on a similar optical ambiguity whereby ‘the Langdale Pikes, and their surrounding mountains seem, in some states of the atmosphere, to approach and overshadow the waters [of Windermere]; and in others to retire, and shroud themselves in cloud land’.Blacklock did not work directly from the motif but instead drew landscape sketches in watercolour which later formed the basis of his studio compositions, or perhaps worked largely from memory. He may in addition have used photographs – probably daguerreotypes which in the 1850s were beginning to be made available by commercial photographers – to remind himself of the broad outlines of his chosen subjects (as may be suggested by the way he treats shadows in his paintings, which sometimes seems reminiscent of photographic images). He did not seek the kind of literal transcription of the forms of the landscape that artists influenced by Ruskin attempted in the period, but sought a quintessential representation of topographical type which might be recognised as a timeless record of a hallowed place, treated with an extraordinary intensity of vision. The Langdale Pikes seem to have had a particular hold on the artist’s imagination, as he painted the range on a number of occasions and from different vantage-points. An earlier work showing Blea Tarn and the Langdale Pikes of 1852 is in the collection of a descendant of the artist, while a painting entitled Esthwaite Water and the Langdale Pikes (although in fact showing Elter Water) was commissioned by William Armstrong [later Lord Armstrong, the Newcastle industrialist and arms manufacturer whose house Cragside near Rothbury was built by the architect Richard Norman Shaw] in 1855. Clearly the Lakeland landscape was enormously important to Blacklock. All his exhibited works were of northern settings, and we may be sure that even during the years that he spent in London he will have made frequent visits to Cumberland, and that he believed himself to have as his essential purpose the representation of a beloved North. Analogy may be made between Blacklock and other European artists who like him felt it was their mission to explore and describe a landscape setting which they had known from earliest childhood, feeling such close personal identity with those places as to amount to obsession. His near contemporary Gustave Courbet (1819-1877) never tired of painting landscape and country life subjects set in Ornans in the Jura Mountains of eastern France, and created an extraordinary and indelible imagery of that region. Likewise, Paul Cézanne (1839-1906) painted series of views of the Mont Sainte-Victoire in his native Provence so as to capture the essential identity of a topography that was to him living and imbued with vital and personal associations. These were all painters for whom the intimate knowledge and long contemplation of a specific locality was a vital requirement for an art to be vital and true, and who found themselves in the representation of places with which they had long association, as if the landscape forms, light and air, which were the object of their art, retained some kind of subliminal resonance of the pattern of their own lives.Blacklock’s last extraordinary surge of creativity was sadly short lived. By the time the present work was painted, he was seriously afflicted by symptoms of the disease that would kill him. In the first place, he suffered from an inflammation of the eyes that would in due course make him partially blind. In November 1855, having become increasingly erratic in his patterns of behaviour, he was placed in the Crichton Royal Mental Institution in Dumfries, and where he died on 12 March 1858 as a result of ‘monomania of ambition and general paralysis’. Interestingly, the Crichton hospital, under the direction of Dr William Browne, had recently introduced therapies to attempt to aid their deranged inmates including drawing, as happened also at the Royal Bethlehem Hospital for the Insane in London during the time that Richard Dadd was incarcerated there, so Blacklock was able intermittently to continue at least to draw to the end of his life. A number of landscape sketches made at the Crichton are reproduced in Maureen Park’s book Art in Madness – Dr W.A.F. Browne’s Collection of Patient Art at Crichton Royal Institution, Dumfries, Dumfries, 2010.The Langdale Pikes above Blea Tarn was painted for the artists’ colourman Charles Roberson, probably to a commission and as a pendant to another work of 1854, The Miller’s Homestead (private collection). Whatever professional difficulties Blacklock may have faced in the years that he lived in London, in the 1850s, after his return to Cumwhitton he began to find himself sought after by a small but discriminating circle of patrons. Roberson himself was a significant figure in the establishment of a progressive school of painting in the middle years of the century, because he supplied artists with a range of new and stronger pigments, often derived in their manufacture from industrial processes, and thus aided the move towards more brightly coloured works which was a characteristic of English painting in the period. A degree of rivalry seems to have come about between Blacklock’s would-be patrons, chronicled in the letters that the artist wrote to the Gateshead metallurgist James Leathart (now held as part of the Leathart Papers, University of British Columbia). Roberson’s two paintings are referred to in a letter to Leathart of 2 June 1854, ‘one the same lake as I am going to do for Mr Armstrong – the other a Millers Homestead – the mill looking over a moor & distant hills they are for Mr Roberson the artists colourman’. In September 1855, just weeks before his final incarceration, Blacklock sent off the Lakeland views that he had made for Armstrong and Leathart, and in doing effectively concluded his professional career.Blacklock is an important and intriguing figure who may be regarded both as a pivot between the early nineteenth-century landscape school and the achievements of Romanticism, and the earnest and obsessive innovations of the Pre-Raphaelite landscape school. Perhaps a vital factor in our understanding and appreciation of the particular character of Blacklock’s art is his knowledge of historic schools of painting. Living in London in the late 1830s and 40s he would have had the opportunity to study the works in the National Gallery. It has been suggested that it was the unveiling of works long concealed under layers of discoloured varnish as a result of Charles Eastlake’s cleaning programme of in the mid-1840s that prompted Blacklock to adopt brighter and more luminous colours. A further possibility is that he made a European tour at some point, seeing for himself works of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and also perhaps making contact with working artists in France or Italy. Only the slightest indication survives of Blacklock’s interest in the work of the Old Masters – in a letter to Leathart of 20 September 1854 he looks forward to hearing about the works of art that the latter had seen in the course of a Continental tour. Nonetheless, broad stylistic analogies may be drawn between the landscape paintings of Blacklock and those of other British artists who had visited Europe in their formative years. William Dyce, for example, who had visited Italy in 1825-26 and there made contact with the German Nazarene painters in Rome. Something of the clarity of light and simplicity of expression, along with a particular feeling for colour effects which are peaceful and never strident, that characterises Dyce’s pure landscapes, is also infused into the less well known works of Blacklock, and may perhaps likewise be indebted to a knowledge of European schools of painting.Christopher Newall
A large quantity of Bentley related items to include radiator shell for a 3 litre black label, front bar with Bentley drivers club badge and Alvis owners badge, silk handkerchief marked Metropolitan Police School Hendon, with various signatures and Bentley related decoration, fine cast metal products, historical cars 1:24 scale model of a 1928 Bentley Le Mans 4.5 litre, quantity of assorted books and ephemera comprising Rolls Royce service manual 1970 Silver Wraith, Silver Dawn Mark Six and Phantom Mark Four, Bentley 50 year guide of the mark by Johnny Green, racing history of Bentley 1920-1931 by Darrell Berthon, signed and inscribed to Ena and Ken Frith with Love, Darrell Berthon, `Motoring My Way` by Stanley Sedgwick, `The How and Where of the 8 Litre Bentley` by S Sedgwick, `All The Pre-war Bentley`s as New` by S Sedgwick, `R-type Continental` by S Sedgwick, `Where Have All the Blowers Gone` by S Sedgwick, `20 Years of Crewe Bentley 1946-1965` by BDC, `A Brief Guide to Rolls Royce and Bentley Cars 1925-1955`, `My Wife and My Cars` by WO Bentley, `Bentleys Centenary 1885-1985`, also a large Perspex winged bee emblem and a picture of 1936 era Remus type-BRA, first impression limited edition of 500 dated February `69, framed and glazed, formally the property of Mr Ken Frith, who was the regional chairman of the North Western group of Bentley drivers club and a member of the Alvis owners club and well known within the Bentley collectors societies (illustrated)
An ebony and lacquered brass navigational octant Gray & Keen, Liverpool, early 19th century The 10 inch diameter frame inset with ivory scale and signature plaque GRAY & KEEN. STRAND. LIVERPOOL the pivoted brass arm incorporating vernier aperture and angled mirror, with fixed pinhole sights and pivoted filters, 30cm high, in original oak box.
A brass and black japanned eidograph Stanley, London, early 20th century The 30 inch beam calibrated 85-0 with vernier scale, locking screw and signed STANLEY, LONDON to the central pivot, with pulleys connected by tension cables to each end engaging via similar vernier sockets to their respective similarly calibrated adjustable arms fitted with attachments for transposing lines onto paper, in original fitted mahogany box (some accessories lacking) 95.5cm long; with two boxed patinated brass parallel roller rules, each signed A.G. THORNTON LTD, MANCHESTER and in original mahogany boxes, (3).
A brass and black japanned eidograph Stanley, London, early 20th century The 30 inch beam calibrated 85-0 with vernier scale, locking screw and signed STANLEY, LONDON to the central pivot, with pulleys connected by tension cables to each end engaging via similar vernier sockets to their respective similarly calibrated adjustable arms fitted with attachments for transposing lines onto paper, in original fitted mahogany box (some accessories lacking) 95.5cm long; with a boxed patinated brass parallel roller ruler, signed A.G. THORNTON LTD, MANCHESTER and in original mahogany box and two pivoted parallel rulers, (4).
A brass and phosphor bronze eidograph Joseph Casartelli, Manchester, late 19th century The 3 foot beam calibrated 90-0-90 with vernier scale, locking screw and signed J CASARTELLI, 43 Market St., MANCHESTER to the central pivot, with cast pulleys connected by tension cables to each end engaging via similar vernier sockets to their respective similarily calibrated adjustable arms fitted with attachments for transposing lines onto paper, in original fitted mahogany box pasted with instructions and label PEMBERTON COLLI... WIGAN to inside of lid, the box 106cm long. Provenance: Private collection Gloucestershire, previously supplied to the Pemberton Colliery, Wigan. Joseph Casartelli is recorded in Clifton, Gloria Directory of British Scientific Instrument Makers 1550-1851 as working from 43 Market Street, Manchester 1851-95. The eidograph was invented by William Wallace, Professor of Mathematics at Edinburgh University in 1821 as an improvement over the pantograph. The connected pulleys ensure that both arms of the mechanism remain parallel and the vernier scales allow accurate scaling of the facsimile.
A mahogany, iron and cast brass laboratory mirror galvanometer Leeds & Northrup & Co. Philadelphia, early 20th century The substantial oblong iron case enclosing a rectangular coil applied with a small circular mirror and suspended via wires around a magnet, behind cast brass glazed cover inscribed in relief LEEDS & NORTHRUP CO. SCIENTIFIC INSTRUMENTS PHILADELPHIA 67690, mounted onto mahogany panel with three electrical connection posts to front and trade label to underside, with cast iron triform stand on adjustable feet, 46cm high; with a reflecting galvanometer scale with translucent paper scale calibrated from 320-0-320 mounted within glazed mahogany surround and supported via sliding collars on two cylindrical uprights, the rectangular base applied with maker`s nameplate NADLER BRO`s & Co., Westminster and ivorine retailer`s plaque for PHILIP HARRIS & Co. Ltd and with light tube applied to a black painted metal shade to one side (light focussing lens and lamp lacking), 61cm wide. Provenance: Private collection Gloucestershire. The mirror galvanometer was devised in order to obtain the most accurate readings possible. By using reflected light against a separate scale to indicate deflection, errors that may come about due to the deflection having to operate a pointer with mass (albeit compensated) can be eradicated.
A collection of laboratory liquid thermometers Various makers, early 20th century Comprising ten with glass-encased Centigrade scales some signed GRIFFIN & GEORGE LTD, the largest 43cm long; five total immersion examples with centigrade scales, the longest 30cm; and two others; with three glass hydrometers, each with either lead shot or mercury filled counterweight beneath float and glass encased paper scale, (20). Provenance: Private collection, Gloucestershire.
A rare Victorian brass and opaque glass maximum/minimum thermometer Callaghan, London, late 19th century The opaque glass Fahrenheit scale plate applied with shaped tube arranged to provide a minimum reading to the inverted scale on the left hand side and maximum reading to the ascending scale to the right, the lower bend of the tube filled with mercury acting against markers inserted within the spirit filled sections, with signature CALLAGHAN & Co. 23A NEW BOND STREET, CORNER OF CONDUIT ST., LONDON to upper margin and supported via turned brass mounting brackets to an oak wall mounting plate, 51cm high. William Callaghan is recorded in Clifton, Gloria Directory of British Scientific Instrument Makers 1550-1851 as trading from 23A New Bond Street 1859-75. This type of maximum/minimum thermometer was invented by James Six (1731-1793) in around 1780 and relies on markers inserted in the tube to remain at the highest position gained by the mercury over a given period, hence a record of the minimum temperature on the inverted scale to the left and highest temperature to the ascending scale on the right can be obtained.
A brass bound mahogany barograph Elliott Bros., London, early 20th century With eight-part vacuum chamber within lacquered brass armature operating inked pointer for the clockwork driven rotating paper-scale lined drum the interior applied with ivorine plaque ELLIOTT BROS, LONDON beneath five panel bevel glazed cover with brass edged top and bottom rails, on ogee moulded base with chart drawer to apron, 36cm wide. Provenance: the base is applied with a brass plaque inscribed ADMIRALTY PRIZE, FOR FIVE FIRST CLASS CERIFICATES ,1905, SUB-LIEUTENANT CUTHBERT D. LONGSTAFF R.N..
A George V silver cased pocket barometer and thermometer J. C. Vickery, London, 1911 The circular silvered register calibrated in inches within rotating altimeter scale to bezel, the centre with curved Fahrenheit thermometer and signed J.C. VICKERY, LONDON, the cylindrical case with shaped thumbpiece to the hinged lid, marks for London 1911, diameter 4.7cm.
A Victorian carved walnut aneroid wall barometer Unsigned, late 19th century The 10 inch circular silvered register calibrated in inches and with the usual observations to the upper margin, the lower margin applied with a curved mercury Fahrenheit scale thermometer, the centre with blued steel pointer beneath signature WATSON BROS., 4 PALL MALL, LONDON the bevelled glass applied with a brass setting pointer and mounted within a cast brass bezel, the case with laurel carved border to the scrolled strapwork surround, 63cm high.
A George III mahogany bulb cistern tube stick barometer Manticha, London, circa 1800 With concave sided pediment above cavetto cornice and glazed paper scale calibrated in inches and signed Mantica Fecit, LONDON within the rococo scroll and Masonic symbol printed border, flanked by turned side columns and above mounded trunk with exposed tube, the square base with moulded underside (cistern cover lacking, tube empty), 96cm high excluding finial. Provenance: Private collection, Gloucestershire. Dominic Manticha is recorded in Banfield, Edwin BAROMETER MAKERS AND RETAILERS 1660-1900 as working from 11 Ely Court, Holborn, London 1781-1805.
A George III inlaid mahogany bulb cistern tube stick barometer Leoni and Tarone, London, circa 1800 With broken triangular pediment above silvered vernier scale calibrated in inches, annotated with the usual observations and applied with an alcohol Fahrenheit thermometer beneath signature Leoni & Tarone, LONDON to upper margin, behind glazed door with ebony and box chevron strung edges above caddy moulded trunk with angled veneers within conforming parquetry borders, and domed cistern cover to the rounded base, 97cm high.
A fine and rare William IV mahogany cistern tube angle barometer in the manner of John Whitehurst of Derby Birchall, dated 1835 With square section finial to the cavetto moulded and gadrooned pediment above angled silvered glazed scale calibrated from 28 to 31 inches and divided into twentieths (0-300 over the length of the scale) with MUCH RAIN, Rain, Change, Fair, SET FAIR predictions and signed Birchall and dated 1835 to lower edge, the tube with brass setting pointer adjusted by turning the knurled brass finial at the end of the ogee shaped caddy terminal of the angled arm, the kingwood crossbanded and cockbeaded trunk with concealed tube and crossbanded borders to the figured veneers, the shaped base with half cylinder turned cistern cover with ring turned girdle and finials to top and bottom, 93cm (3ft 0.5ins) high. Banfield does not record a maker with the name Birchall working around this time however a M. Birchall is recorded in Baillie G.H. Watchmakers & Clockmakers of the World as working in Derby circa 1770-90. The current lot can be very closely compared to examples made by John Whitehurst of Derby during the latter half of the 18th century (for an example see Goodison, Nicholas English BAROMETERS 1680-1860 2nd ed. page 282). This suggests that this instrument was either made by a subsequent member of the Whitehurst family to be retailed by Birchall or is an accurately detailed version made by Birchall himself.
A Regency inlaid mahogany mercury wheel barometer A. Rivolta, Chester, early 19th century The 8 inch circular silvered register calibrated in inches, with the usual observations and signed A. Rivolta, Chester to centre, with concave cast brass bezel and brass setting pointer to glass beneath arched Fahrenheit scale alcohol thermometer flanked by conch shell inlaid oval paterae, with further circular shell inlaid panels to the broken pediment and rounded base, the edges with ebony and box strung decoration, 98cm high. A. Rivolta is recorded in Banfield, Edwin BAROMETER MAKERS AND RETAILERS 1660-1900 as working in Chester circa 1815-45.
A Regency mahogany mercury wheel barometer Sordelli, early 19th century The 10 inch scroll-centre engraved circular silvered register calibrated in inches and with the usual observations, beneath brass edged circular convex mirror, arched mercury Fahrenheit scale thermometer and hygrometer to the swan neck pediment, the rounded base with spirit level signed Sordelli, Warranted beneath setting pointer adjustment key, the case with ebony and box strung edges, 105cm high. Several makers with the surname Sordelli are recorded in Banfield, Edwin BAROMETER MAKERS AND RETAILERS 1660-1800 working in London during the first half of the 19th century.
A Regency mahogany mercury wheel barometer with timepiece C. Negrini, Tenterden, early 19th century The 10 inch rosette-centre engraved circular silvered register calibrated in inches and with the usual observations, beneath short duration timepiece movement with white enamel Arabic numeral dial, arched Fahrenheit scale thermometer and hygrometer to the swan neck pediment, the rounded base with spirit level signed C. NEGRINI, Tenterden beneath setting pointer adjustment square, the case with ebony and box strung edges, 108cm high. Negrini is recorded in Banfield, Edwin BAROMETER MAKERS AND RETAILERS 1660-1800 as working in Tenterden circa 1820-40.
A William IV mahogany mercury wheel barometer J. Spelzini, London circa 1830 With 10 inch circular star centre engraved silvered register calibrated in inches and with the usual observations beneath convex mirror, arched Fahrenheit scale thermometer and hygrometer to the swan neck pediment, the rounded base with spirit level signed Spelzini 11 Brooks Market, 109cm high. Provenance; The current lot was used in the 1977 NZBC film dramatisation of New Zealand Governor General George Grey who held office from 1845-53 and then again 1861-8 and was acquired by the vendor from an subsequent auction of props used in the production conducted by Dunbar Sloane of Wellington. J. Spelzini is recorded in Banfield, Edwin BAROMETER MAKERS AND RETAILERS 1660-1900 as working from 11 Brooks Market, Holborn, London circa 1830-50.
A Victorian Scottish mother of pearl, brass and pewter inlaid rosewood mercury wheel barometer D. McGregor, Greenock and Glasgow, circa 1860 The 10 inch rosette centre engraved circular register calibrated in inches signed D. McGREGOR, GREENOCK & GLASGOW to centre and with the usual observations, beneath arched Fahrenheit scale mercury thermometer, the scroll edged case with rosette terminals to the raised edge mouldings and elaborately decorated with bird inhabited foliage issuing from stylised urns, the shaped base with brass rosette centred with the setting pointer key, 105cm high. D. McGregor & Co. are recorded in Banfield, Edwin BAROMETER MAKERS AND RETAILERS 1660-1800 as working in Glasgow from 1856, Banfield also notes that the firm had branches in both Greenock and Liverpool.
A Victorian mother of pearl inlaid rosewood mercury wheel barometer Unsigned, mid 19th century The eight inch star-centre engraved circular silvered register calibrated in inches and with the usual observations, beneath bowfronted Fahrenheit scale mercury thermometer applied to the tapered upright and hygrometer to the swan neck pediment, the square base with rectangular spirit level inscribed Warranted Correct beneath setting pointer adjustment square and with cavetto moulded underside, 104cm high.
A Fine carved walnut mercury wheel barometer Negretti & Zambra, London, late 19th century The 10 inch rosette centred circular silvered register calibrated in inches (divided into hundredths), with the usual annotations and signed NEGRETTI & ZAMBRA, Scientific Instrument Makers to Her Majesty, LONDON to lower edge, within cast lacquered brass bezel set into rectangular surround with tile carved decoration to angles flanked by reeded pilasters supporting pediment centred balustrade and with panel fronted drop-section incorporating setting pointer adjustment knob beneath, the trunk with large silvered Fahrenheit and Centigrade scale glazed mercury tube thermometer with elaborate coiled bulb flanked by pilasters and buttresses with baluster infill and cruciform finials beneath rosette centred frieze and further gable centred gallery to pediment, 113cm high. Provenance: Private collection, Gloucestershire. The trunk is applied with a silvered presentation plaque inscribed PRESENTED TO MR. AND MRS. A. DE ROUGEMONT by the members of the Addlestone Cricket Club IN RECOGNITION OF THEIR KINDNESS DURING THE LAST 9 YEARS, MARCH 1898. The firm of Negretti & Zambra are recorded in Banfield, Edwin BAROMETER MAKERS AND RETAILERS 1660-1900 as being established in 1850 when a partnership between Enrico Negretti and Joseph Warren Zambra was formed. The firm became one of the most prolific makers of scientific instruments and continued trading well into the 20th century. The current lot demonstrates a `no expense spared` approach to quality with even small components normally hidden from view such as the tube retention clips being finished to the highest standards.
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