The clock features in an engraved view of John Jones's Dining Room at 95 Piccadilly, London. The side panels are thought to be later replacements. This clock was among a large collection of furniture, porcelain, metalwork, paintings and books owned by the tailor and businessman John Jones, and kept in cramped conditions at his Piccadilly house. In his will of 4 December 1879 and in a codicil of 22 January 1880, Jones bequeathed the objects to the South Kensington Museum, and they were transferred there after his death in 1882. The Handbook to the Jones bequest, published in 1883, marvels at the value of the gift, which seems still not to have been displayed to best advantage: 'Probably a large majority of those who visit the Jones collection will be indisposed to believe ... that so limited a space as three not large galleries in the Museum can contain furniture and decorative arts worth no less than a quarter of a million of money'. Jones' principal collecting interests lay in French eighteenth-century furniture and decorative arts, of which this clock is an example, as well as reflecting the late-Victorian love of rich, gilded surfaces and historical artistic styles. Acquired by John Jones before 1882; it is one of sixteen clocks he bequeathed to this museum.
ecrm:P3_has_note
The clock features in an engraved view of John Jones's Dining Room at 95 Piccadilly, London. The side panels are thought to be later replacements. This clock was among a large collection of furniture, porcelain, metalwork, paintings and books owned by the tailor and businessman John Jones, and kept in cramped conditions at his Piccadilly house. In his will of 4 December 1879 and in a codicil of 22 January 1880, Jones bequeathed the objects to the South Kensington Museum, and they were transferred there after his death in 1882. The Handbook to the Jones bequest, published in 1883, marvels at the value of the gift, which seems still not to have been displayed to best advantage: 'Probably a large majority of those who visit the Jones collection will be indisposed to believe ... that so limited a space as three not large galleries in the Museum can contain furniture and decorative arts worth no less than a quarter of a million of money'. Jones' principal collecting interests lay in French eighteenth-century furniture and decorative arts, of which this clock is an example, as well as reflecting the late-Victorian love of rich, gilded surfaces and historical artistic styles. Acquired by John Jones before 1882; it is one of sixteen clocks he bequeathed to this museum.