Mantel clock

Porcelain clock cases or watch-stands were first produced by European factories in the 1720s, but do not appear in English porcelain until the late 1750s, when such objects were made at Bow and Chelsea. These are two examples of the same model, with minor differences and with variations in the decoration and gilding, suggesting that they are at least partly the work of different hands. They present something of a hybrid design, resembling the large-scale ‘pastoral’ groups of shepherds and shepherdesses which were made at Chelsea in the early 1760s, but surmounted by a small clock. They can be dated between 1761, when their strong crimson ground colour is first mentioned in the Chelsea sale catalogues; and 1766, when the factory’s senior and most outstanding modeller Joseph Willems returned to his native Flanders. The figures of a shepherd awakening a sleeping shepherdess are characteristic of his style.

Georg Philip Strigel held the appointment of Watchmaker to the Queen and may be identifiable with ‘Stragael’, the ‘blunt, high-dried, honest German’ who ‘had the care of his majesty’s clocks’ and was once interrupted by the King whilst attending to a clock dial at Buckingham House, ‘standing upon a stool, placed upon a table, his hands extended above his head’. He was made an honorary freeman of the Clockmakers' Company in 1871 - conferred on those who the Company believed could help to advance its interests - socially and influentially.

Only one of the movements survives. Originally 24-hour, they had been altered to 8-day going by 1821, when Benjamin Vulliamy refurbished them for George IV at Carlton House.

Catalogue entry adapted from George III & Queen Charlotte: Patronage, Collecting and Court Taste, London, 2004