A William III walnut and floral marquetry eight-day longcase clock, Daniel Quare, London, circa 1695 The five finned pillar inside countwheel bell striking movement with anchor escapement regulated by seconds pendulum and 11 inch square brass dial with ringed winding holes, subsidiary seconds dial and delicate repeating ring border decorated calendar aperture to the matted centre incorporating a conforming concentric band of rings around the centre hole, within applied silvered Roman numeral chapter ring with stylised sword hilt hour markers, Arabic five minutes within the outer track and signed Dan: Quare, London to lower margin, with pierced blued steel hands and winged cherub mask and leafy cast spandrels to angles with foliate scroll engraved infill to margins between, in a case with ogee cross grain moulded cornice and plain frieze above hood door applied with Solomonic three-quarter columns to angles and veneered with floral trial marquetry, the sides with rectangular windows and conforming quarter columns applied to bargeboards at the rear, the trunk with flowerhead decorated convex throat above 41 inch door centred with a brass bordered lentical and decorated with marquetry bird inhabited flowering foliage around a central urn into a faded ebonised ground within line border, the surround with foliate wreath banding and the sides with two line-edged panels, the plinth base with stepped ogee top mouldings over conforming foliate decorated panel within wreath border, on shallow moulded skirt, 207cm (81.5ins) high. Provenance: The property of a gentleman. Labels pasted to the interior of the case indicate that the current clock was formerly in the collection of A.J. Colls of 125 Foxley Lane, Purley, Surrey; subsequently sold (by Order of his Executors) at Sotheby’s, New Bond Street, London, 26th March 1954 (lot 78) where it was purchased in the name of Alcock for £55 0 0. The current owner subsequently acquired the clock by private purchase on 25th June 1975 for £2,650.00. Daniel Quare is an important maker who is recorded on Loomes, Brian The Clockmakers of Great Britain 1286-1700 as born in Somerset circa 1647/8; by 1671 he had moved to London as he was admitted as a Free Brother to the Clockmakers' Company in April of that year. Quare initially worked in St. Martin's Le Grand, London (where he married in 1676) later moving to Allhallows, Lombard Street in 1681, before finally relocating to Exchange Alley where he is believed to have taken-on the former premises of Robert Seignior in around 1686. Quare was selected as a member of the Court of Assistants in 1698 later becoming Master in 1708. In 1709 he is believed to have taken his former apprentice, Stephen Horseman, into partnership which presumably lasted until Quare's death in 1724. Daniel Quare was a fine and inventive maker who supplied clocks and barometers to significant European Royal and aristocratic clients. As a committed Quaker he refused to sign the Oath of Allegiance in 1697, however as a much respected maker, he was still able to discreetly supply the court of William III.In around 1680 Quare made repeating watches to his own design which eventually lead him to dispute a conflicting patent filed by Edward Barlow in 1686; the resulting exchange two years to resolve.