ue Clocks, Watches, Barometers & Instruments
Keith Piggott |
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In 1976 Keith set up the customs and assay bonded ‘euro art centre’; he
promoted exhibitions, from early arms and armour, to an English museum’s
collection of Dutch & Flemish old masters - his first love. Keith has
recognised or discovered ‘lost’ masterpieces, both in fine art and horology.
In 1979 he appraised the ‘Tulip Tompion’, adding a naught to offers
received, it made the price. But in 1981 the financial climate reversed, he
had to sell up and the family returned to England. Keith handled fine clocks; Fromanteel’s ebony Dutch longcase (now in the H.M. Vehmeyer collection); the unique baroque gilt-wood Johannes van Ceulen (its case now attributed to Daniel Marot); a silver Edward East repeating clock (in the National Trust collections); Tompion’s two earliest pre-Greenwich long duration movements; the last privately owned Charles Clay organ clock; Wetherfield’s four-train musical clock by William Kipling. He also advised in the restoration of Fromanteel’s earliest musical long-case (c.1660-65), recovered properties, and has given expert evidence before British Courts. Keith disclaims being an ‘horologist’, being more comfortable as ‘antiquarian’. His illustrated reports, and ‘perspectives’ show his insights into obtuse problems; like the 1657 Contract; and a Royal Hague-clock. He is passionate about Ahasuerus Fromanteel, his ‘True Patriarch of English Clock-making’, whose famous solar and musical masterpiece for Mr. Dudley Palmer in 1649, last mentioned in Fromanteel’s workshop in 1684, he was first to recognise, then decipher its mysteries. He greatly admires Johannes van Ceulen, ‘The Dutch Tompion,’ whose collaborations with Christiaan Huygens paralleled Tompion’s own with Robert Hooke. He freely collaborates in research, but now prefers to work without speculative pressure of dealing.
In this way, Keith
believes, he serves his adopted subject better.
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