The founder of this Huguenot clock-making firm, Daniel Delander, is best known for his invention of the duplex escapement and the silent pallet, but he was also an aesthetic innovator. Arguably the most distinctively handsome longcase clock design of the early 18th Century was his flat-top breakarch with canted corners.

Fashion in the second half of the century became much plainer, but Daniel’s son, Nathaniel, appear to have been one of the earliest to use the longcasestyle which later came to epitomise the best London makers, such as Mudge, Dutton, Holmes and Vulliamy. It featured a plain breakarch, surmounted by a single ball finial on a curved plinth.

We have an example of this style of clock which can be dated with some certainty to around 1760, with a plain silvered dial that is a masterpiece of the engraver’s art. The mahogany case is in exceptionally original condition and it is unusually small: 7’ to the top of the arch; 7’6” to the top of the ball finial.