AN ENGLISH ANGLE BAROMETER

This distinctive diagonal barometer is attributed to English instrument maker John Patrick (1654-1730). His work is often recognizable by the elaborately engraved register plates, typically made of brass and then silvered. Several of John Patrick's barometers also exhibit charming interpretations of how to read the barometer engraved on the register plates. A nearly identical example, with similarly intricately carved bracket mounts is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (64.101.886).

Until the 1960s, this unusual barometer hung in the offices of the Jenney Manufacturing Company in South Boston, Massachusetts. Jenney and Co. had been founded in 1861 by the brothers Bernard and Francis Jenney, building on the success of their father Stephen Jenney who founded the Jenney Oil Company in 1812. Family tradition has it that the barometer had previously belonged to a sea captain.