Attributed to Winchester, Virginia, 1790-1800
Maple with yellow pine and black walnut
Catalog no. 170
The case design most often associated with Winchester, a major southern clock production center, is epitomized by this well-preserved maple clock. Featuring a broken-scroll pediment, carved rosettes, quarter-columns, shaped trunk door, curvilinear base panel, and ogee bracket feet, the case closely relates to the Augusta County, Virginia, clock on this platform and suggests the direct influence of eastern Pennsylvania designs.
Although the movement was probably made in Winchester, the mark of “Osborne's / MANUFACTORY / BIRMINGHAM” on the false plate indicates the dial was imported. By the 1790s, Britain was the leading producer of fashionable, inexpensive painted white dials that were easy to attach to any type of movement and typically left a blank space below the dial for the signature of the person who assembled the clock.