The Barrauds were a French Huguenot family from Angouleme, who settled in London around 1700. Over the next two hundred years they produced a remarkable string of talented individuals, including the engraver Philip Barraud, the renowned sporting artists William and Henry Barraud and the portrait artist, Francis Barraud, who painted one of the most famous advertising images of all-time – that of the family terrier, Nipper, in the advertisement for His Master’s Voice.

At the end of the eighteenth century, the Barraud name was most publicly known from the activities of the horologist, Paul Philip Barraud, who produced some of the finest English watches and chronometers ever made. He died in 1820 but the firm flourishedfor another fifty years.

Barraud’s clocks are few and far between but we have acquired a plain, elegant wall timepiece, dating from around 1815. The case style is reminiscent of his contemporary, Vulliamy, with a neat, chisel-like shaping to the bottom, but it is also noteworthy for the number of doors: not only one to each side and on the bottom face buta full lngth door on the back to facilitate fitting of the massive pendulum.