The banjo clock, or banjo timepiece, is an American

wall A wall is a structure and a surface that defines an area; carries a load; provides security, shelter, or soundproofing; or, is decorative. There are many kinds of walls, including: * Walls in buildings that form a fundamental part of the su ...

clock A clock or a timepiece is a device used to measure and indicate time. The clock is one of the oldest human inventions, meeting the need to measure intervals of time shorter than the natural units such as the day, the lunar month and t ...

with a

banjo The banjo is a stringed instrument with a thin membrane stretched over a frame or cavity to form a resonator. The membrane is typically circular, and usually made of plastic, or occasionally animal skin. Early forms of the instrument were fashi ...

-shaped case. It was invented by

Simon Willard Simon Willard (April 3, 1753 – August 30, 1848) was a celebrated American clockmaker. Simon Willard clocks were produced in Massachusetts in the towns of Grafton and Roxbury, near Boston. Among his many innovations and timekeeping improvements ...

, originally of

Grafton, Massachusetts Grafton is a town in Worcester County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 19,664 at the 2020 census. The town consists of the North Grafton, Grafton, and South Grafton geographic areas, each with a separate ZIP Code. Incorporated in ...

, later of

Roxbury, Massachusetts Roxbury () is a neighborhood within the City of Boston, Massachusetts. Roxbury is a dissolved municipality and one of 23 official neighborhoods of Boston used by the city for neighborhood services coordination. The city states that Roxbury ser ...

, and patented in 1802. The banjo clock normally lacks a striking mechanism and indicates time only by its hands and dial, for which reason some horologists may insist upon calling it a

timepiece A clock or a timepiece is a device used to measure and indicate time. The clock is one of the oldest human inventions, meeting the need to measure intervals of time shorter than the natural units such as the day, the lunar month and th ...

rather than a true clock. In popular usage though, no such distinction is made. The banjo style of wooden case usually features a round opening for a painted dial, a long-waisted throat, and a

rectangular In Euclidean plane geometry, a rectangle is a quadrilateral with four right angles. It can also be defined as: an equiangular quadrilateral, since equiangular means that all of its angles are equal (360°/4 = 90°); or a parallelogram containin ...

pendulum A pendulum is a weight suspended from a wikt:pivot, pivot so that it can swing freely. When a pendulum is displaced sideways from its resting, Mechanical equilibrium, equilibrium position, it is subject to a restoring force due to gravity that ...

box with hinged door. Both the throat and door are ornamented with reverse-painted (''

verre églomisé ''Verre églomisé'' is a French term referring to the process of applying both a design and gilding onto the rear face of glass to produce a mirror finish. The name is derived from the 18th-century French decorator and art-dealer Jean-Baptiste ...

'') glass panels, and the case is usually flanked by curved and pierced

brass Brass is an alloy of copper (Cu) and zinc (Zn), in proportions which can be varied to achieve different mechanical, electrical, and chemical properties. It is a substitutional alloy: atoms of the two constituents may replace each other wit ...

frets. A

finial A finial (from '' la, finis'', end) or hip-knob is an element marking the top or end of some object, often formed to be a decorative feature. In architecture, it is a small decorative device, employed to emphasize the apex of a dome, spire, t ...

mounted atop the case usually takes the form of a cast-brass

eagle Eagle is the common name for many large birds of prey of the family Accipitridae. Eagles belong to several groups of genera, some of which are closely related. Most of the 68 species of eagle are from Eurasia and Africa. Outside this area, j ...

or a turned, giltwood

acorn The acorn, or oaknut, is the nut of the oaks and their close relatives (genera '' Quercus'' and ''Lithocarpus'', in the family Fagaceae). It usually contains one seed (occasionally two seeds), enclosed in a tough, leathery shell, and bo ...

. Only 4,000 authentic Simon Willard banjo clocks were made. The style was widely copied by other members of the Willard family of clockmakers and many others clockmakers, both craftsmen and industrial manufacturers. Variants of the banjo-style clock made by others include examples with square or diamond-shaped dials, and the extremely opulent, heavily gilt "girandole" style.

References

External links

{{commons category-inline, Banjo clocks
Willard House & Clock Museum
located in Grafton, Mass., the original homestead of Simon Willard, home to the largest collection of Simon Willard clocks and his patented timepieces. American inventions Clock designs Antiques

See also

References

External links