Tall Clock (Primary Title)
David Rittenhouse, American, 1732 - 1769 (Clockmaker)
Unknown (Maker)
A handful of native-born clock makers worked in the colonies during the pre-Revolutionary period. Born near Germantown, Pennsylvania, David Rittenhouse established a studio on his family farm in Norriton in the 1750s. There, the scientist, astronomer, politician, and patriot constructed a variety of scientific and mechanical devices. This clock features a circular face scribed in black with Roman hours and Latin minutes. Its silvered dial and brass filigree spandrels make a particularly strong decorative statement. Despite this elaborate detail, the cabinet displays a more restrained classical taste. Although its maker is unidentified, the case boasts freestanding colonettes, quarter-turned fluted columns, arched doors, raised panels, and ogee-bracket feet, all of which portend a shift toward neoclassicism. The rationalism of classical theory was particularly suited to the idea of controlling time.
engraved above clock face: "Dav Rittenhouse / NORRITON"
Gift of Anne Rowland
Literature.
Agnes Addison. Portraits in the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1940.
Edwin A. Battison and Patricia E. Kane.The American Clock: 1725-1865. The Mabel Brady Garvan and Other Collections at Yale University. Greenwich, Ct., New York Graphic Society Limited, 1973.
William H. Distin and Robert Bishop. The American Clock: A Comprehensive Pictorial Survey 1723-1900 with a Listing of 6153 Clockmakers, New York, E. P. Dutton, 1976.
Brandon Brame Fortune and Deborah Jean Warner. Franklin and His Friends: Portraying the Man of Science in Eighteenth-Century America, exh. cat., Washington, D.C., National Portrait Gallery, 1999.
Charles Coleman Sellers. Portraits and Miniatures by Charles Willson Peale, Philadelphia, American Philosophical Society, 1952, pp. 181-183.
[From the Curatorial Write-Up/Acquisition Justification by Dr. David Park CurryCurator of American Arts, 3 December 2003]
Agnes Addison. Portraits in the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1940.
Edwin A. Battison and Patricia E. Kane.The American Clock: 1725-1865. The Mabel Brady Garvan and Other Collections at Yale University. Greenwich, Ct., New York Graphic Society Limited, 1973.
William H. Distin and Robert Bishop. The American Clock: A Comprehensive Pictorial Survey 1723-1900 with a Listing of 6153 Clockmakers, New York, E. P. Dutton, 1976.
Brandon Brame Fortune and Deborah Jean Warner. Franklin and His Friends: Portraying the Man of Science in Eighteenth-Century America, exh. cat., Washington, D.C., National Portrait Gallery, 1999.
Charles Coleman Sellers. Portraits and Miniatures by Charles Willson Peale, Philadelphia, American Philosophical Society, 1952, pp. 181-183.
[From the Curatorial Write-Up/Acquisition Justification by Dr. David Park CurryCurator of American Arts, 3 December 2003]
Image released via Creative Commons CC-BY-NC
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