An ebony-veneered spring-driven table clock, signed on both a recessed plaque on the dial and the backplate Roger Dunster, c. 1735. The inverted-bell top case has sound frets to the front and sides and is surmounted by five finials. The dial has a silvered chapter ring, date and false-pendulum apertures and a rotating moon sphere in the arch. In the top corners there are two subsidiary dials, the left-hand one for strike/silent and the right-hand one for rise-and-fall regulation. The twin-fusee movement consists of going and striking trains and has trip repeat. The going train has verge escapement whilst the Dutch-striking train is controlled by a rack, indicating the hours and half hours on two bells of different pitch. • Height: 55cm. • The maker, Roger Dunster, was born about 1695 and died in 1747. He was one of many English clockmakers who came to Holland. In 1722 he formed an association with Christopher Clarke in Amsterdam. The firm was called Clarke & Dunster. Clarke was married to the daughter of Ahasuerus (II) Fromanteel in 1694. His firm operated, probably from that date, under the name Fromanteel & Clarke until 1722, when he took on Roger Dunster as a partner, or perhaps sold the shop to him. Probably from 1729 Dunster began to operate the firm under his own name. In 1744 he bought a house on Vijgendam, Amsterdam. At that time he was regarded as the most important clockmaker in Amsterdam. After his death in 1747 the clockmaker Abraham Bruykens took over the business. • Literature: E. Morpurgo, Nederlandse klokken- en horlogemakers vanaf 1300, Amsterdam, 1970, p. 36; H.M. Vehmeyer, Clocks – Their Origin and Development 1320 – 1880, Gent, 2004, pp. 252, 452-456, 963.