The portable regulator signed that sold for £16,500 at Lawrences.
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.
