Table clock, c. 1700 - c. 1725

Small table clock veneered with tortoiseshell on an oak core. It rests on diagonally placed silver feet decorated with acanthus leaf and volutes. It has a profiled base moulding and a quarter-round cresting on an openwork silver frieze with broken volutes and acanthus leaf, and a small vase on a pedestal flanked by volutes on top.

The small door is arched and scalloped at the top. The silver dial is mounted on a brass plate, engraved in the centre with acanthus tendrils and flowers and a cartouche with the signature: I van Ceulen Le Jeune Hague. The cartouche is flanked by averted cherubs. In the lower corners are openwork silver spandrels with symmetrical, broken volutes. In the upper corners on the engraved brass plate are silver indications for "slaan" and "niet slaan", "spreken" and "niet spreken".

In the arch an indication of the position of the sun and moon and of various tunes. The sides have rectangular openings displaying, against a ground of green fabric, openwork silver fillings with symmetrical acanthus volutes and in the centre a vase, flanked by facing C-volutes. Above these fillings are silver handles. At the back is a small door, through which part of the movement and the engraved backplate, which is also provided with a signature, are visible.

The Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, holds this object as BK-15991; its record gives material recorded as tortoise shell, textile materials, wood (plant material), silver (metal), brass (alloy), oak (wood); technique gild; measurements height 50 cm x width 26.3 cm x depth 28.8 cm. Description translated from the museum's Dutch catalogue text; details are those of this museum object, and how far it represents a wider type has not been independently verified.