LONG-CASE CLOCK.
Maker, Henry Harper (Cornhill).
1690-95.
Height, 8 ft. 6 in. Width, 1 ft. 7½ in. Depth, 10 in.
(In the possession of Mr. John Girdwood, Edinburgh.)

Frequently cases offer curious obstacles to preconceived ideas. Take, for example, the fine case with the movement by Henry Harper of the period from 1690 to 1695 illustrated (p. [81]). As far as it is possible to determine, it would seem that this specimen of marquetry belongs to a later period, certainly more advanced than the panel period. With so fine a field of design to select from, no marquetry-worker would take this design from a Persian carpet at the beginning of the style. This case represents the highest Dutch feeling and technique as assimilated in this country, and the carved brackets have a distinctly Marot character. It stands as a superlative example of marquetry decoration.

It sometimes happens that a clockmaker, as the differences in sizes of many of these clocks are not great, found an earlier case ready to his hand, or a client desired a particular style of decoration, and he accordingly put his new clock of 1710 into a case twenty or thirty years earlier. Or it may be that some marquetry-worker reproduced the former style. Whichever may have happened we cannot say—these are the conundrums left as a heritage to the collector, who now comes two hundred years later.

The fine example of a clock by Martin, London (1710), illustrated (p. [85]), is well balanced, and typifies the marquetry in an early period. The turned pillar has not yet disappeared, and is reminiscent of the fine Tompion cases with turned pillars. It exhibits the transitional stage before marquetry entirely supplanted the older style. In this specimen the marquetry is under fine artistic control.

In what for convenience of expression we term the "all-over" period the marquetry-worker ran riot. Not only in colour, for he had to compete with the richly coloured lacquered cases, but in form. But he had as a craftsman learned the art of laying his imported marquetry sheets where he willed. He was not deterred from rounded surfaces, and the cramped pattern of the panel was discarded, to make way for the style where the pattern, like chintz or wall-paper, conveniently repeated itself.

There is no mistaking such an example, splendid though it is, as exemplifying this period illustrated (p. [87]), for the quieter and more reticent style of panel-work with design in due subjection.

The student will desire to take cognizance of country-made marquetry cases. Marquetry was practised in England before this outburst of colour and form on the clock-case. Occasionally settles and buffets—very occasionally—had stringing in a thin pattern of black and white intarsia work. Provincial makers are therefore a delight as well as a confoundment to the collector. A cabinet-maker in Devonshire or a would-be marquetry-worker in Cumberland may, between his intervals of making the coffins for his deceased neighbours or turning their wagon shafts, essay to try his hand at imitating the squire's clock-case of fifty years' previous date. He usually puts a label to his handiwork which renders it easily recognizable. There is no style réfugié about his craftsmanship. His design is crudely "chopped in," that is, the solid wood has been cut out to receive the pieces of the design, usually, as found now, very badly glued, and severely handled by time. This is interesting as showing 'prentice work—that is, 'prentice work coming many years after the finished art had been established in this country. It is remarkable that no such apprentice work appears in London-made examples. The conclusion to which one must come is that there was no such apprenticeship. Foreign refugees made the clock-cases or they were imported from Holland.

LONG-CASE CLOCK.
Maker, Martin (London). 1710.
Finely decorated in marquetry, with turned pillars in hood. Showing transitional period.
(In the possession of Mr. John Girdwood, Edinburgh.)