(image credit: Dutch Antique Domestic Clocks    Dr. J. L. Sellink   Clock Trade Enterprises Bronxville, NY 1973)

The Stoelklok was a posted movement movement of brass construction on a wooden bracket with a shaped back.  The adaption of form to the pendulum can be seen on the left hand clock:  The pendulum swings from a Black-Forest like loop on a post in the backboard six inches above the movement.  This is bad in SO many ways.  A pendulum should always swing from the center of the location of the arbor which impulses it. In form, you can see the similarity with the English lantern clocks.

It's bigger, it has a brightly painted dial plate, and that finial in the atlas-and-earth form was something repeated throughout Dutch work.

(image credit: Dutch Antique Domestic Clocks    Dr. J. L. Sellink   Clock Trade Enterprises Bronxville, NY 1973)

Where the dial in the English lantern clocks bulged beyond the frame, the Dutch often went in for decorative "ears" as in this example.

(image credit: Dutch Antique Domestic Clocks    Dr. J. L. Sellink   Clock Trade Enterprises Bronxville, NY 1973)

When it became clear that that short pendulum hung in the wrong place just wouldn't keep time, the pendulum grew longer, and was boxed in to protect it from drafts, as in this example, which was a transition to...

(image credit: Dutch Antique Domestic Clocks    Dr. J. L. Sellink   Clock Trade Enterprises Bronxville, NY 1973)

the Staartklok.  You notice that the clock has been entirely encased in wood, except for the weight drop. Even though we are quite late in the 18th century here, the movement is still posted, in a form that would seem to cry out for a plated movement.  In the example on the left, you will note those, well, exuberant finials.

There was a lot of interchange between England and the Netherlands.  The Dutch developed their own version of the longcase clock.  Here are a few examples:

(image credit: Dutch Antique Domestic Clocks    Dr. J. L. Sellink   Clock Trade Enterprises Bronxville, NY 1973)

The early clock on the right is very similar to English examples. Earliest of the three examples, it has an inlaid wood case and a square dial.  The only thing that shows it's Dutch origin is the Architectural top to the hood, and the oversize bun feet.  

The clock on the left is mid 18th century, and the plinth starts to be shaped.  Here they are also flirting with an s-curve column in the French manner, but that never really caught on. The dial has calendars for lunar age, day, date, and month. The day and month dials are engraved with elaborate allegorical figures showing in sectors.  

The central clock is late 18th century.  Note the full Bombé base, which is so characteristic of Dutch longcases.  This is a VERY big clock, more than eight feet tall. Note the scene below the main chapter in the dial, this is a recessed animated scene of a harbor, where the ships sway in time with the pendulum. Some examples even had a moon in the sky of the harbor which showed the lunar phase.

These clocks had movements not that different from English longcase clocks, except for striking details.  They had elaborate hammer linkages, and two bells, striking the hour on the lower bell, and the half hour, repeated on the higher bell.  These are the pieces that we are likely to see here in the states, particularly the later, gaudier, examples.

Next time: more 18th century clockmaking in other European countries.

Previously:

Monastic alarms and the beginnings of clockmaking
De Dondi's remarkable astrarium
Early tower clocks
Gothic iron clocks
Rennaisance clocks
Early english lantern clocks
Huygens and the pendulum
Fromanteel's English pendulum clocks
Huygens in Paris
Clement and the recoil escapement
Edward East and the golden age
Thomas Tompion
Daniel Quare
Joseph Knibb
Golden age recap
The balance spring
Paris - Louis Quatorze
Paris - La Regence
Graham - Compensation