Rhode Island Furniture Archive - Yale University Art Gallery

Photo: Courtesy Winterthur Museum and Country Estate, Del., Photo by Laszlo Bodo Click the image to enlarge	Dwarf case clock
	Object number RIF782
	Maker Maker Unknown Clockmaker Thomas Claggett, ca. 1730?1797
	Dimensions Height: 61 in. (154.94 cm) Width, cornice: 13 7/8 in. (35.243 cm) Width, shaft: 9 in. (22.86 cm) Width, pedestal: 11 5/8 in. (29.528 cm) Width, feet: 14 1/2 in. (36.83 cm) Depth, cornice: 7 3/4 in. (19.685 cm) Depth, shaft: 5 1/2 in. (13.97 cm) Depth, pedestal: 6 7/8 in. (17.463 cm) Depth, feet: 8 in. (20.32 cm) Dial, less lunette: 7 � 7 in. (17.78 � 17.78 cm)
	Date 1755–65
	Current location The Metropolitan Museum of Art
	Geography Made in Newport, Rhode Island (view a map of Rhode Island)
	Medium Mahogany (primary); white pine (hood top and back and seat board); spruce (backboard)
	Marks "Thomas / Claggett / Newport," engraved on boss in dial arch
	Inscriptions Scratched on backs of cupid spandrels: "II, III, V, VI, X"
	Style Chippendale
	Provenance George S. Palmer (1855–1934), New London, Connecticut; sold to The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1918
	Associated names George Smith Palmer
	See also RIF4537
	Bibliography Charles O. Cornelius, Early American Furniture (New York: Century Co., 1926), pl. 31. Bernice B. Osburn and Burl N. Osburn, Measured Drawings of Early American Furniture (Milwaukee, Wisc.: Bruce Publishing Company, 1926), 63–65, ill. and measured drawings. Brooks Palmer, The Book of American Clocks (New York: MacMillan Company, 1928), pl. 17. Verna Cook Salomonsky, Masterpieces of Furniture Design (Michigan: Periodical Publishing Co., 1931), pl. 101 (measured drawings). Wallace Nutting, The Clock Book (Garden City, N.Y.: Garden City Publishing Co., 1935), no. 75. Brooks Palmer, The Book of American Clocks (New York: MacMillan Company, 1950), no. 17. Wallace Nutting, Furniture Treasury (New York: MacMillan Company, 1963), no. 3244, ill. Herbert F. Schiffer and Peter B. Schiffer, Miniature Antique Furniture (Wynnewood, Pa.: Livingston Publishing Co., 1972), 138–139, ill. p.144. William H. Distin and Robert Bishop, The American Clock: A Comprehensive Pictorial Survey, 1723–1900: With a Listing of 6153 Clockmakers (New York: E. P. Dutton and Company, 1976), 81, fig. 160. Richard L. Champlin, "Thomas Claggett: Silversmith, Swordsman, Clockmaker," Bulletin of the National Association of Watch and Clock Collectors, Inc. 21, no. 2 (April 1979): 172. Morrison H. Heckscher, American Furniture in the Metropolitan Museum of Art: Late Colonial Period, The Queen Anne and Chippendale Styles (New York: Random House, 1985), 292–94, no. 189, ill. Patricia E. Kane et al., Art and Industry in Early America: Rhode Island Furniture, 1650–1830, exh. cat. (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Art Gallery, 2016), 297n2. Donald L. Fennimore and Frank L. Hohmann III, Claggett: Newport's Illustrious Clockmakers (Winterthur, Del.: Winterthur Museum, Garden, and Library, 2018), 218–21, 247, no. 22, TC-2, ill. The Claggetts of Newport: Master Clockmakers in Colonial America, exh. cat. (Newport, R I.: Redwood Library and Athenaeum, 2019), 37, ill.