Exhibition quality rare and impressive German Black Forest m...

Exhibition quality rare and impressive German Black Forest musical cuckoo burr walnut and ebonised table clock by Johann Baptiste Beha, circa 1878,6.5" turned wooden dial of a rich patina with applied enamelled cartouche Roman numerals in a gilt rimmed and bezel glazed door, intricate carved bone hands, eight day wood plate twin fusee movement with outside countwheel and linkages to two bellows and a cuckoo automaton which appears from behind the door above the dial, with a two-note call alternating with a hammer sounding on a gong fitted to the inside of the rear case panel, strike/silent options via a side door to turn on and off both the spiral gong and the cuckoo sounding, with music box operation on hourly strike, the music box manufactured by Paillard, with a 13" cylinder playing eight airs which can be selected to play just one tune or on a sequential rotation of all eight, with pull repeat to operate the music box on demand, the case of a rich patina with applied carved heraldic and foliate mouldings, 28.5" high, 24" wide, depth 9.5" ** The George Hollis Collection ** The clock was acquired from Austria and was said to have been in the ownership of a wealthy Italian family many years before this ** Pencil marked information on the pine back board suggests it could have been allocated the catalogue number of 548, but this is an unconfirmed assumption ** Johann Baptist Beha was born in Oberbränd in 1815. He trained in his father's Vinzenz (1784-1868) workshop, but in 1845 at the age of thirty left to set up on his own in Eisenbach

Estimate:$6,619.23

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