Important Americana

Important Americana

View full screen - View 1 of Lot 1634. CHIPPENDALE WALNUT TALL CASE CLOCK, WORKS BY BENJAMIN RITTENHOUSE, WORCESTER, PENNSYLVANIA, DATED 1782.

Property of a Private Collector, Bucks County, Pennsylvania

CHIPPENDALE WALNUT TALL CASE CLOCK, WORKS BY BENJAMIN RITTENHOUSE, WORCESTER, PENNSYLVANIA, DATED 1782

Auction Closed

January 26, 08:38 PM GMT

Estimate

5,000 - 7,000 USD

Lot Details

Description

CHIPPENDALE WALNUT TALL CASE CLOCK, WORKS BY BENJAMIN RITTENHOUSE, WORCESTER, PENNSYLVANIA, DATED 1782


lacking sarcophagus top; the brass dial engraved Benj. Rittenhouse 1782.

Height 88 in. by Case Width 12 ⅞ in. by Depth 10 in.

Please note this clock is lacking the glass in the bonnet.

Benjamin Rittenhouse (1740-1825), trained by renowned older brother, David Rittenhouse, was one of the most prolific manufacturers of clocks and precision instruments in America during the late 18th century. A veteran of the American Revolutionary War, he served as a captain in the Pennsylvania militia and later superintendent of the gunlock factory in Philadelphia. After the gunlock factory was disbanded in 1779, he set up a shop in Worcester, Pennsylvania, where this clock was likely made.


A closely related example is in the collection of the Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut (see Edwin A Battison and Patricia E. Kane, The American Clock 1725-1865, (Greenwich, Connecticut: New York Graphic Society, 1973), no. 26, p. 122).