A walnut and marquetry longcase clock

A walnut and marquetry longcase clock, the brass eight day movement by Henry Jones, with recoil anchor escapement, with five turned and knopped pillars, with an outside countwheel striking on a bell, the 10in dial with gilt cast cherub and scrolling leaf spandrels, with a silvered chapter ring with Roman and Arabic numerals, the matted centre with an engraved date aperture, subsidiary seconds dial and ringed winding holes, signed 'Henry Jones in the Temple', the dome top inlaid with flowers above a pair of giltwood urn finials, and a fret carved frieze, with a pair of columns, the trunk with seaweed borders and panels of floral marquetry with a bird, a pair of mermen and an urn of flowers, with a glass lenticle, above a conforming plinth and flattened bun feet, late 17th century but case and movement probably associated, 228.5cm high.

Henry Jones is an important maker who is listed in Brian Loomes' Clockmakers of Britain 1286-1700 as born to William Jones at Boulder, Hampshire in 1634. He was apprenticed to Edward East in August 1654 gaining his Freedom of the Clockmakers' Company in July 1663. Jones is thought to have initially worked as journeyman to Edward East before setting up on his own in the Inner Temple, London by 1672. In 1675 he is recorded as 'in Inner Temple Lane' prior to being appointed as an Assistant of the Clockmakers' Company the following year. Henry Jones was subsequently made a Warden in 1687 and finally served as Master of the Company in 1691. Amongst his many apprentices were Francis Robinson (freed 1707) and two of his sons, Henry (freed April 1678) and William (not freed). In 1692 Jones gave the Clockmakers' Company £100 'for the use of the poor'; he died in 1694 leaving his workshop in the hands of his widow, Hannah, who is known to have supplied clocks signed in her name.