AFA Summer 2019

Summer 86 www.afamag.com | w ww.incollect.com Fig. 6: Detail of the silvered brass arch dial of the Caspar Wistar tall-case clock, Philadelphia, 1730, illustrated in Figures 4 and 5, with an eight-day tide dial movement by William Stretch. Its case was ordered by Caspar Wistar from John Head, and debited in Head’s account book, page 87, left, on April 30, 1730. Private collection, Philadelphia. Photography by Winterthur Museum, Library & Garden. such entries rather than just the four described as cherry, as each of those £5 clock cases was probably also in a wood other than walnut. For example, on October 25, 1734, Head debited to the account of pewterer John Leacock (1689–1752) a £5 case and a £15 clock by Peter Stretch: “dd [delivered] to William Calender” [Callender] (1703–1763)]. The 1763 inventory of William Callender’s estate listed “an Eight Day Clock with Cherry Tree Case” in the “Front Parlour,” at a combined value of £10. 5 A surviving maple clock case (Fig. 8) with a solid family history corresponds to another of the £5 entries with undesignated wood. It is the only known maple case from the Head shop, or indeed any shop, housing a Peter Stretch movement. The clock descended in the family of its first owner Anthony Morris IV (1705–1780). Its case can now be documented by the April 3, 1734, entry in which Head charged Samuel Powell Sr. (1673– 1756) the sum of £5 “To a Clockcase dd to his son[-in-law] Anthoney Morris.”  6 The 1734 Anthony Morris maple clock case has brass surrounding its lenticle and brass bases and capitals on its engaged hood columns, as on the Lisle case. Its waist door has a thumbnail edge and its hood side molding and sidelight are unarched. The Anthony Morris case is the earliest documented instance of an ogee bracket foot appearing on Philadelphia furniture. Uniquely, its feet are two ogee brackets (now somewhat reduced in height) running the length of either side; nothing