William Nicoll, Edinburgh – 1775
£5,850.00
A fine George III mahogany longcase clock by William Nicoll of Edinburgh, exemplifying the confident architectural style associated with the city’s leading late-18th-century makers. The superbly carved swan-neck pediment rises with elegant sweep, inset with pierced boxwood frets and terminating in crisply carved paterae. Turned and fluted columns, capped in brass, frame the hood door and lend a classical authority characteristic of Edinburgh casework of the period.
The 12-inch brass break-arch dial is of particularly high quality. A curved cartouche engraved with the maker’s name sits within the arch above a silvered strike/silent subsidiary dial, its function indicated by a finely cut steel hand. The silvered chapter ring encloses a matted centre, with recessed subsidiary seconds set behind an expertly fluted and chased circular aperture — a refined detail demonstrating the engraver’s skill. Beneath the name disc, a tapering square calendar aperture displays the day of the month, neatly integrated into the composition.
Behind the dial lies an eight-day movement of superior construction, regulated by a brass-faced pendulum. The layout and finishing are entirely in keeping with the best Edinburgh practice of the period — robust, precise, and made to endure.
Altogether, this is a distinguished example of an Edinburgh longcase: confident in proportion, restrained yet scholarly in ornament, and mechanically accomplished — a clock that would have stood proudly in a Georgian New Town interior.
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