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Dimensions: height 37in. 94cm

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Provenance: Collection of Henry Francis du Pont, the pioneer American furniture collector;
to his granddaughter, the present owner

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Notes: Made by the innovative Roxbury clockmaker, Simon Willard (1753-1848), this banjo clock is a version of the improved timepiece for which Willard received a patent in 1802 and acclaim during his lifetime. Characteristic of Willard's finest banjo clocks, this example has an eight-day movement set in an elaborate giltwood case surmounted by the original patriotic spread-winged eagle finial; it is fitted with costly églomisé panels also featuring an eagle, symbol of the new republic and appropriate iconography for a clock made during the Federal period.

Born in Grafton, Massachusetts in 1753, Simon Willard Sr. trained with the English-born Grafton clockmaker John Morris before working locally for his older brother Benjamin. By 1784 he had his own shop in Roxbury, where he trained his sons Simon Jr. and Benjamin in the trade, as well as Daniel Munroe Jr. and Levi and Abel Hutchins, among others, before retiring in 1839. Also an inventor, Willard received patents for the improved timepiece in 1802 and the lighthouse clock in 1819, stating in the application for the latter, the whole plan of the clock I claim as my invention. The banjo clock was the best known of Willard's clocks and he claimed nine improvements in his 1802 patent, eight concerning the movement and the ninth the shape of the case. The églomisé panels for his banjo clocks may have been supplied by Aaron Willard Jr. (1783-1864) and his brother-in-law, Spencer Nolen, who were ornamental painters in partnership from 1805 to 1809.

For a similar Simon Willard banjo clock with an eagle finial and eagle-painted églomisé panel, see one illustrated as "best" in Albert Sack, The Fine Points of Furniture, New York, 1950, p. 135. Another in the Mabel Brady Garvan Collection at Yale University, made by Jabez Baldwin of Salem, displays similar glass panels supplied by Willard and Nolen (see William Distin & Robert Bishop, The American Clock, 1976, no. 517, p. 222).