AFA Summer 2019

Antiques & Fine Art 101 2019 Fig. 7: Detail of the bombé clock base in fig. 6 showing lamination seams. contour into just this walnut board. This outermost board ends at a seam, visible on the bottom of the curve. Had the maker not added another, short piece of walnut to cover the end of the hard pine, its resinous pine grain would have been distractingly visible immediately above the base moldings. This construction suggests a competent furniture-maker’s effort to fabricate a design that he had seen but had not studied or practiced. 11 His inspiration for the bombé shape may have come from imported Dutch or German tall clocks or from printed designs. 12 A Philadelphia origin for the clock acknowledges several observations. Types of secondary woods, notably the tulip poplar backboard and other uses in the case, were popular choices throughout the Philadelphia region as previously noted, as well as elsewhere in the Mid-Atlantic and South. The unusual arched waist door recalls spice boxes and other furniture made in the Philadelphia area. 13 Although cataloguing and patterning characteristics of clock dials, engraving, and movements requires further refinement by clock historians, features of the nameless dial (which originally had