A fine Anglo-Dutch mulberry, field maple and parcel-ebonized month-going longcase clock, signed Fromanteel and Clarke, circa 1715.
 
Height: 98"
 
Provenance: Sotheby's, April 5&6, 2004, Lot 53, Sale price $45,000.
 
Description from Sotheby's catalog: 12-inch brass dial with wheatear border, silvered chapter ring with roman numerals, pierced steel hands, concentric alarm disc, apertures for date and day with symbol, month with maximum days and Sign of the Zodiac, moon phases with high tide indication, subsidiary seconds, double cherub, crown and scepter spandrels, engraved arch with fine cast cherubs holding a crowned cartouche signed Fromanteel & Clarke, movement with five ring-turned knopped pillars, anchor escapement, Dutch half hour rack striking on two alternating bells, alarm to the side, mulberry wood veneered case with cushion top surmounted by three gilt-wood ball finials, pierced foliate frets under the broken-arch moulded cornice, the hood with brass capped pilasters and frets to the sides, broken-arch trunk door with inlaid banding, circular brass lenticle, rectangular inlaid base with moulded plinth raised on bun feet, crossbanded sides divided into panels by ebony stringing.
 
The Fromanteel name is legendary in clock making, and a Formanteel & Clarke signature represents a specific, highly coveted era.  Major auction houses (such as Christie's and Sotheby's) consistently treat signed Fromanteel pieces as museum-grade acquisitions.  For context on the brand's immense historical weight, a rare 17th-century longcase clock by Ahasuerus Fromanteel sparked a major national conversation when the UK government placed a temporary export ban on it to try and keep a £3+ million masterpiece in the country.
 
This clock is an early forerunner of complex calendar features seen much more commonly later Dutch clocks.   The ebonized molding framing the trunk door is a common characteristic of Fromanteel & Clarke longcase clocks. 
 
Condition: In good overall condition. Minor losses to the molding around the top right corner, to the blind fretwork, and to the veneer and molding on the front of the cabinet. The clock face with a few areas of minor staining.  Base molding and feet of a later date.
 
Note from the Metropolitan Museum of Art:
 
The Fromanteel family was instrumental to introducing the pendulum clock into England.  The history of the Fromanteel family of clockmakers remains a subject of contention, but Ahasuerus II Fromanteel, the second son of Ahasuerus I Fromanteel (1607–1693), was undoubtedly born in 1640 in London, where he apprenticed as a clockmaker. He moved to The Hague sometime between 1677 and 1681, as he is mentioned as being there at various times between 1677 and 1684. He became a burgher in 1683.  Alternatively, he is thought to have established a business in Amsterdam in 1681 with his brother John Fromanteel (1638–1692) in the Vijgendam, now part of the Dam Square near the Rokin. The next record finds him in Amsterdam in 1693, and in the following year, his daughter, Anne, married the expatriate English clockmaker Christopher Clarke (1668–1734). Together, they operated in Amsterdam as Fromanteel and Clarke until Fromanteel’s death in 1703, but Clarke apparently retained the double name until 1722.