MINIATURE TABLE CLOCK Signed Jan Bernardus Vrijthoff Haga Ca. 1770 The Netherlands

M&R33a

MINIATURE TABLE CLOCK
Signed Jan Bernardus Vrijthoff Haga
Circa 1770
Netherlands

Movement
The spring-driven single chain fusee movement consists of a going train only. It has verge escapement with a short pendulum. In addition, the clock has an alarm, which is activated by a cord on the right-hand side of the case. The backplate is profusely engraved depicting scroll motifs around the signature.

Dial
The ached brass dial plate has a circular enamel dial with Roman hour numerals and minute divisions. The time is indicated by a fine pair of pierced blued steel hands. There is an enamel silvered signature plaque in the arch Jan Bernardus Vrijthoff Haga. The corners around the dial are embellished by pierced scroll spandrels.

Case
The arched ebony-veneered oak case has arched windows on all sides, those on the front and back brass framed. The sides have pierced brass sound frets. The case is surmounted by a shaped brass carrying handle on a single pad. The whole rests on brass feet.

Duration eight days

Height 28 cm.
Width 17 cm.
Depth 13.5 cm.

Literature
– E. Morpurgo, Nederlandse klokkenmakers en horlogemakers vanaf 1300, p. 136.
– P. Mestrom 1977, p. 242

The maker
Jan Bernardus Vrijthoff worked in the Hague in the second half of the eighteenth century. He lived on the Herderinneweg or ´t Zand. He was master of the clockmakers’ guild from 1773 until 1797. The Vrijthoff family is originally from Heusden, the members of which have belonged to the Dutch nobility since 1840. One branch of the family were clockmakers in Maastricht and The Hague in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, another were Dutch civil servants in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.