Live Auction 7961500 Years: Decorative Arts Europe
A VICTORIAN LARGE BRASS-BOUND AND MOUNTED ROSEWOOD EIGHT DAY MARINE CHRONOMETER
Lot 211 MARINE CHRONOMETERS FROM A PRIVATE COLLECTION (LOTS 209-211)

A VICTORIAN LARGE BRASS-BOUND AND MOUNTED ROSEWOOD EIGHT DAY MARINE CHRONOMETER

PORTHOUSE AND FRENCH, LONDON, NO. 7276. CIRCA 1865

Closed17 March 2011

Price Realised

GBP 5,250

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A VICTORIAN LARGE BRASS-BOUND AND MOUNTED ROSEWOOD EIGHT DAY MARINE CHRONOMETER
PORTHOUSE AND FRENCH, LONDON, NO. 7276. CIRCA 1865
CASE: three tier box with ivory plaque inscribed 'PORTHOUSE & FRENCH/MAKERS TO THE ADMIRALTY/16 Northampton Square/London', above further ivory plaque inscribed 'WM WEICHERT/112/BUTE DOCKS', inset brass handles DIAL: 115 mm. diameter silvered dial, subsidiaries for seconds and state of wind, signed 'Porthouse & French/MAKERS TO THE ADMIRALTY/16 Northampton Sqre. London/7276', gold main hands MOVEMENT: main frame assembly carrying fusee, barrel and centre wheel, sub-frame assembly with chain guard and carrying remainder of the train, detent escapement to cut bimetallic balance with circular temperature compensation weights, blued steel helical spring; tipsy winding key
8½ in. (21.5 cm.) high; 8¼ in. (21 cm.) square

Anonymous sale, Christie's London, 26 November 1996, lot 375.

Specialist note

Thomas Porthouse is recorded at 16 Northampton Square 1840-1864. French joined him circa 1864. William Weichert is recorded working in London, 1865-1887 and Bute Docks, Cardiff, 1871-1885.
Weichert exhibited his chronometers in Paris in 1867, Havre in 1868 and won a Grand Medal of Merit at the Vienna Exhibition of 1873. He was maker to the Admiralty and to the Emperor of Austria who awarded him the Golden Cross and Crown and also the patentee of the centre seconds chronometer.
Tony Mercer (Chronometer Makers of the World, London, 1988, p. 252) describes him as 'a fine workman who made many chronometers and trained many of the craftsmen who kept the Bristol Channel shipshape'.