Lot 316

Daniel Quare, London, Movement No. 1269, 54 mm, 126 g, circa 1690
A rare pair-cased verge clock watch with day and night indicator
Case: outer case - silver. Inner case - silver. Dial: silver, Champlevé. Movm.: full plate movement, chain/fusee, three-arm steel balance.
The silver champleve dial has retrograde Roman hours. The hours are indicated by a blue steel disc which rotates once every 24 hours. This is viewed through a semi-circular aperture and has engraved on one half the gilt sun and on the other the moon. At the edge of the semi-circle the hours are marked from six through twelve and back to six in Roman numerals. As the sun disappears at the right of the aperture the moon appears at the left. The bottom half of the dial with signature "Quare London" and punched foliage and volutes.
Daniel Quare, one of the most eminent makers was born around 1648 in Somersetshire. He joined the clockmakers company in 1671 and became a master in 1708. He died on March 21, 1724, in Croydon in Surrey. In addition to his legendary clocks and watches Quare created various barometers and mathematical instruments and is credited with the invention of the rack striking mechanism. He came to the attention of the King in 1686, when Edward Barlow tried to patent a repeating mechanism for watches, and Quare, with the support of the clockmakers company, appealed his patent, saying he had been making repeaters since 1680. Repeating was important in the era before easily turned-on electric light, so you could know what time it was in the dark. Barlow's patent was refused, and the king, testing Barlow's and Quare's watches side by side, stated a preference for Quare's. There are Quare clocks in the royal collections at Buckingham Palace and Hampton Court, as well as in important museums and further private collections.