Beschreibung:

A fine, impressive and very rare Victorian engraved gilt brass and malachite inset clock with thermometer and aneroid barometer in the form of a full-sized occasional table Thomas Cole London, number 1 545, circa 1860 The eight-day movement resembling that of a standard Cole strut clock with rectangular frontplate stamped with serial number 1 545 and applied with two separate shaped backplates for the going and strike trains each with going barrels, six-spoke wheel crossings and three pillars secured by screws from the rear, the going train incorporating vertical shaped platform English lever escapement regulated by sprung three-arm steel monometallic balance, the strike train sounding the hours on a coiled gong mounted behind the movement, the left hand backplate stamped THOMAS COLE LONDON to lower edge, the 10 inch circular silvered Roman numeral dial incorporating recessed circular subsidiary barometer scale calibrated in barometric inches and with the usual observations and a curved Fahrenheit scale mercury thermometer to the finely engraved centre decorated in the Greek revival manner with hatched radial rosette incorporating anthemion motifs within a Vitruvian scroll border, with plain minute and cruciform hour blued steel hands within generous gilt cavetto moulded bezel incorporating concentric bead-cast borders and fitted with a heavy bevelled glass, the case with table-top incorporating quatrefoil lobed rim applied with eight malachite roundels set in pairs between anthemion and stylised scroll decorated projections of the stepped rim, the shallow dome-shaped rear panel centred with a square box enclosing the movement and incorporating winding/hand setting holes and shuttered escapement viewing aperture to underside, the whole mounted via hinged screw pivots and a curved graduated stay onto a conforming square plate attached by a rotating joint onto the elaborate two-tier triform base, the upper section with three slender square section uprights incorporating outswept bracket-shaped terminals to top over stylised panel and foliate scroll engraved feet resting onto a concave-sided platform stage with conforming fine foliate motif and gadroon border engraved detail, the lower tier with three further panel decorated square section baluster uprights mounted onto a substantial stepped triform block applied to a wide platform base adorned with three finely cast recumbent sphinxes within further finely worked stylised scroll and gadroon engraved borders, the underside with three adjustable disc-shaped levelling feet (surface with overall brown patination, barometer mechanism lacking), 49.5cm (19.5ins) wide across the top; 75.5cm (29.75ins) high with table top in horizontal position. Provenance: The current lot was a given to the vendor's father, a doctor, from a very grateful patient during the early 1960's, thence by descent to the present owner. The life and work of Thomas Cole is extensively documented in Hawkins, J.B. THOMAS COLE & VICTORIAN CLOCKMAKING. Thomas Cole was born in Nether Stowey, Somerset in 1800. His father, Thomas senior, was a local clockmaker who is now known to have moved his family to Taunton in around 1815; he was a talented maker who probably taught both Thomas and his older brother, James Ferguson the clockmaking trade. By 1821 James Ferguson had moved to London and filed a Patent for a pivoted detent escapement, by 1823 he was working from New Bond Street where he was joined by his younger brother, Thomas. Over the next twelve years the two brothers worked alongside each other and produced a series of highly complicated silver 'humpback' carriage clocks very much in the manner of Abraham Louis Breguet (leading some to speculate a connection between Breguet and the Cole brothers). The brothers then went their separate ways with James Ferguson going on to explore his technical abilities later developing a series of escapement designs including a 'resilient' lever escapement (1830), a 'double rotar