Tall Case Clock

Effingham Embree (New York, 1759-1817), clock works
New York (case)
Tall case clock, 1789-96
Mahogany, unidentified light and dark wood inlays, tulip poplar, brass, iron
Gift of funds from Lila Acheson Wallace and other donors F76.1

Effingham Embree is one of New York’s most celebrated makers of clocks and watches just after the Revolutionary War, when stately timepieces were not merely impressive furnishings, they were economic investments for merchants, shippers, and other professions.

Even when compared to Embree clocks at The White House, Winterthur Museum, and Henry Ford Museum, the case housing Boscobel’s example is particularly fine. Painted above the dial is a pastoral landscape with a cottage in a river valley; decorative painting such as this was a popular motif, and therefore industry, in New York. The painter’s name is unknown, as is that of the craftsman who made the case, which bears an inlaid eagle and abstract patterns typical of New York furniture of the same 1790s-1810s period.