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Photo: Courtesy of Gary R. Sullivan Antiques Inc., Sharon, Mass.; photo by Matthew J. Buckley
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Banjo clock

Object number

RIF4616

Maker

attributed to John Young, 1797?1884
Clockmaker David Williams, 1769?1823

Dimensions

Height: 33 7/8 × 10 × 3 5/16 in. (86.04 × 25.4 × 8.41 cm) Height, movement: 4 1/4 in. (10.795 cm)

Date

ca. 1820

Current location

Private collection

Geography

Made in Newport, Rhode Island
(view a map of Rhode Island)

Medium

Mahogany

Marks

"D. Williams, Horologist, Providence," in paint, on dial

Inscriptions

"Patent," in paint, on throat glass

Style

Hepplewhite, Federal

Provenance

Private collection

Notes

Movement: 8-day brass “A frame” timepiece

Bibliography

Paul J. Foley, Willard's Patent Time Pieces: A History of the Weight-Driven Banjo Clock, 1800–1900 (Norwell, Mass.: Roxbury Village Publishing, 2002), 89–90, fig. 203–6.
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), 110, 113n47, 413–14, no. 96, fig. 1.