JEWELLERY, DECORATIVE & FINE ARTS AUCTION Tuesday, 14 March 2023 - 10:00 AM start
A rare Dent (late Arnold and Dent) carriage clock,
Lot Details
date 1850, the movement with twin chain fusée drive, the plate signed 'Dent, late Arnold and Dent' with the 82 Strand, London address and serial number 480, suggesting an origin not long after the dissolution of the Arnold and Dent partnership in the latter half of 1840. It strikes hours and half hours on a gong and has subsidiary day and date dials. All dials are engine turned and silvered. Working. With original carrying case with CMM and 1850 to the lid. Provenance: Ex. Coutts family descendants (of the Queen's bank in the UK). The unique design on the back of the clock case (as well as the lid of the original leather carrying case for the clock) shows the initials CMM and the date 1850. The family advised the vendor that the clock almost certainly belonged to Clara Maria Money (nee Burdett), the daughter of Sir Francis Burdett, and related to Thomas Burdett, (who was in the British government). According to the Coutts Bank Wikipedia page, Clara Maria was a sister of Angela Burdett-Coutts, who inherited much of the assets of the Coutts bank but was later forced to divest much of those assets when, against covenants of the inheritance, she insisted on marrying someone outside the UK. Much of the assets then went to Clara Maria, who by this time had married James Money and who subsequently became Clara Maria Money-Coutts so as to qualify for the inheritance. Interestingly, Clara Maria Burdett married James Money in 1850, so possibly this clock was a wedding gift to her. Sold Webb's 2013.