THIS portable regulator signed Thwaites and Reed, London sold for £16,500 (plus 19.5 per cent buyer's premium) at Lawrences of Crewkerne, Somerset on July 10.
The well-preserved clock standing 17in (44cm) high (the
adjustable levelling feet are now missing) was consigned for sale
by a descendent of John Reeves (1774-1856), a natural history
collector, artist and chief inspector of tea for the East India
Company. Fellow West Country salerooms Dukes of Dorchester and
Woolley & Wallis of Salisbury have both enjoyed strong results
for Chinese works of arts acquired when he lived in China from
1812.
Reeves, elected to both the Royal Society and the Linnean
Society in 1817, made a visit to England in 1824 which (according
to Thwaites' numbering system) coincides precisely with the dating
of this unusual clock.
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