Comitti Longcase Clock Face

The comitti flickr site has been a little dormant for the last few months but hopefully we will be able to upload some new images quite soon. This photo shows an artist hand painting the faceplate of a longcase clock. It is an age old tradition to decorate the face surround of longcase or grandfather clocks and the method is more specifically known as Japanning. Illustrations depicting an idea of time passing were very common with day to night motifs being particularly popular. The idea of time and the temporal cycle of life also ties in with patterns of celestial activity and the celestial connection with time was another common theme in clock face decoration. Anthropomorphic sun and moon iconography featured strongly and some clocks had beautiful sun – moon ‘flags’ that passed through cutouts in the face as the time passed from day to night and vice versa.
Our painter is illustrating this face with a nautical theme which is a little more novel but not uncommon in clocks specifically intended for nautical institutions. Many old clocks intended for industrial or company use had their faces hand painted with logos or other relevant details and many of these are exceptionally collectible. Large numbers of specialist and ornately decorated clocks were manufactured for the railways and shipboard use with major lines.