Estimated Price:

$32,800 - $65,600

Realised Price:

$58,794

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By John Whitehurst, Derby The circular glazed engraved steel dial inscribed ' Whitehurst DERBY ' with Arabic numerals and denominations for 'Fair', 'Rain' and 'Changeable', within a pearled and foliate-carved moulded slip and acanthus and gadrooned outer border, surmounted on the top by a column with fluted and acanthus-carved capital and pearled and entrelac-and-rosette moulded base flanked by stylised acanthus sprays and surmounted by a concave-fronted rectangular platform with later neo-classical urn finial with gadrooned base and guilloche collar, the acanthus scroll carving either side of the base of the stem replaced 413/4 in. (106 cm.) high; 131/2 in. (34.5 cm.) wide PROVENANCE (Probably) The Benjamin Sonnenberg collection, Sotheby's New York, 5-6 June 1979, lot 1641. Bought from Norman Adams at the Antique Dealers' Fair, Grosvenor House, 27 July 1983. LITERATURE (Probably) D. Fitzgerald, 'A New Yorker's Unusual Collection', Apollo, March 1967, p. 170, fig. 15. NOTES The Whitehurst family clockmaking business was started in Derby by John Whitehurst I (1713-1788), and the business was carried on by his son John Whitehurst (1761-1834) who is recorded as working at 22 Irongate, Derby (N. Goodison, Barometers, London, rev. ed., 1977, pp. 284-5, pl. 193). It is not clear whether this group of barometers, probably dating from the early to mid-1770s, were made by the father or son. The father moved to London in 1776. This barometer is part of a group, differing in only the smallest detail, including: One sold anonymously (Arthur A. Leidesdorf), Sotheby's London, 27-28 June 1974, lot 158 (the design lacking the pedestal at the bottom of the shaft) One from the Judge Irwin Untermyer collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (illustrated in Y. Hackenbroch, The Untermyer Collection - Furniture, New York, 1958, pl. 20) One illustrated in P. Macquoid & R. Edwards, The Dictionary of English Furniture, rev. ed., London, 1954, vol. I, p. 19, fig. 24. One from the Henry Hirsch collection is illustrated in M. Harris & Sons, Catalogue and Index, vol. III, n.d. (1928), p. 477. One, more elaborate, was sold by Walter P. Chrysler, Jr, Parke-Bernet New York, 29-30 April 1960, lot 220. One in the Gerstenfeld Collection (E. Lennox-Boyd, ed., Masterpieces of English Furniture - The Gerstenfeld Collection, London, 1998, p. 242, cat. no. 99) The great Derby clockmaker, John Whitehurst I (1713-1788) was a key member of the pioneering Lunar Society and influential friend of Matthew Boulton and Erasmus Darwin (J. Uglow, The Lunar Men, London, 2002).