AFA Summer 2019

Summer 82 www.afamag.com | w ww.incollect.com by Jay Robert Stiefel The John Head Project Documenting His Clock Cases T he Philadelphia account book (Fig. 1) of immigrant English joiner John Head (1688, Bury St. Edmunds, England–1754, Philadelphia) is the earliest and most complete to have survived from any cabinetmaker working in North America or Great Britain. 1 Of the ninety-one clock cases debited there, more than twenty can now be attributed to his shop based on two documented examples discussed below. Head’s most popular model of clock case cost £3. Forty were debited in his accounts (April 14, 1722–September 14, 1743). He identified two as “Walnut” and two as “Squar Case,” suggesting that the others at that price were also walnut cases for square-dial clocks. Typical of Head’s square cases is one in walnut that houses its original eight-day Peter Stretch (1670–1746) square-dial movement (Fig. 2). This is one of Head’s simplest model cases. There are no arches to the waist door, hood, or sidelights. Nor are there moldings applied to the plinth fronts of the hood. The waist door has a plain ovolo-shaped surround. The austerity of the case’s rectilinear design is offset by the double-bead surrounding the lenticle Fig. 1: John Head (1688–1754), John Head his Books of accounts, 1718–1753. Ink-on-paper manuscript leaves bound in a recycled parchment indenture. H. 16 ⅜, W. 6, D. 1 ⅜ in. American Philosophical Society. Photography by John Wynn.