Gold-plated clock cover (c.1670-1690s)

Material – Metal, gilded brass

Place of Origin – Unknown

Although rare in the archaeological record, by the late seventeenth century clocks were becoming increasingly available to the English middle-class. Between 1675 and 1725 the number of households in the English countryside that have clocks listed in their inventories quadruples as these luxury items become increasingly popular and accessible household items.[i] This is an ornately decorated, gilded brass cover for a smaller travel or table clock. The foliate design has at the top two figures facing each other, below them are three winged figures. This design is repeated on the interior side of the cover and would have been visible when the clock cover was open. The cover has a hole in the center. The decorative pierced exterior edge is broken, but would have consisted of an interior row of 12 smaller ornate lobes and an exterior row of 12 larger ornate lobes. Through the larger exterior lobes one would have likely been able to see the hour numbers when the clock was closed.

This gilded clock cover was found at a c.1670-1690s building on a private town lot at Charles Towne that had architectural elements commonly reserved for affluent homes in the seventeenth century English colonies including a brick foundation and chimney, a poured lime floor, lime plastered walls, and glazed casement windows. Luxury items like this clock would have been displayed prominently in the house as a symbol of the owner’s wealth.

[i] Raffaella Sarti, Europe at Home: Family and Material Culture 1500-1800 (Yale University Press, New Haven, CT, 2002), 104,108.