Summer 2016 Preview

Summer 24 www.afamag.com | w ww.incollect.com Visit our Manhattan show room, SUNDIAL NYC Gallery 54, 1050 2nd Ave. New York City, NY 10022 info@sundialfarm.com 6 31.757.9521 www.sundialfarm.com A Premier Resource for Rare & Unusual Antique Clocks c.1895 French Animated Locomotive Clock A wonderful example from the industrial series popular in French horology during the late 19th century. The gilt, silvered and patinated bronze case depicts a 19th century steam locomotive with a clock, barometer and thermometer. The whole stands on a marble base and the animated wheels and levers runs for approximately 1.5 hours on a single wind. 20 in. wide 17.5 in. high Flintlock Pistol Tinder Lighter Steel; mahogany or walnut, ca. 1740 Probably England L: 10¾" x W: 4⅜" x H: 6½" Engraved: IAMES LOgAN Stenton Museum Purchase; Partial Gift of H. L. Chalfant Antiques, funds from The NSCDA/PA Collections Fund, Hannah L. Henderson, David F. Hickock, Kevin and Becky Kerchner, Leslie Miller and Richard Worley Foundation, Jay Robert Stiefel, and Bill and Alice Lea Tasman. Many thanks to Skip Chalfant, Don Fennimore, Jim Kilvington and Mark Allen for their thoughts about this lighter. Images: Courtesy of The National Society of The Colonial Dames of America in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania at STENTON. Photo credits: Laura Keim and Chris Storb. Stenton Museum in Philadelphia, the house of James Logan (1674–1751), Pennsylvania Colonial Statesman, is pleased to announce its recent purchase of Logan’s flintlock pistol tinder lighter, a fine example of its form. Logan’s name is engraved on the side door behind which tinder, usually cotton wadding or fine wood shavings, or an extra flint for striking against the frizzen, was stored. The top is decoratively engraved with symmetrical late baroque foliate arabesques and bellflowers. The joining of the wood handle and the metal base for the mechanism is articulated with a symmetrical pointed and lobed cartouche. While it is possible that the lighter belonged to Logan’s son, James (1728–1803), Stenton’s curator, Laura Keim, believes it likely belonged to the elder Logan because its family provenance is through his daughter Hannah (1720–1762), who married John Smith of Burlington, New Jersey. From thence the lighter descended through the family. As a personal object of luxury and convenience, James Logan’s tinder lighter speaks to his gentlemanly status and sparks our imagination for its use, which may have facilitated Logan’s love of private, late-night reading. discovery