# Longcase clock with calendrical, lunar, and tidal indications, also known as the Graves Tompion > Thomas Tompion - ca. 1677-80 > Canonical HTML: https://iconotheca.com/artworks/thomas-tompion/graves-tompion-met/ > Published by Servola Systems GmbH. Last verified: 2026-08-14 ## Tombstone - **Artist:** Thomas Tompion - **Date:** ca. 1677-80 - **Medium:** Case: oak veneered with walnut, panels of oystershell-cut olive wood; marquetry panels of green-stained bone, ivory, and various woods; mounts of gilded brass. Dial: gilded and silvered brass. Movement: brass and steel. - **Dimensions:** Overall: 77 x 17 x 8 in. (195.6 x 43.2 x 20.3 cm); width of dial plate: 10 in. (25.4 cm) - **Object type:** Clocks and instruments - **Period:** British, Restoration period, late seventeenth century - **Current location:** Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York - **Attribution:** accepted ## Summary A weight-driven longcase clock of about 1677-80, from the earliest and least flamboyant period of Thomas Tompion's career, made before he began numbering his output and therefore untraceable in his own ledgers. Its ten-inch dial does four jobs at once: it tells the hour and minute, it carries the calendar apparatus needed to find the date of Easter, it tracks the moon's phase and age for anyone travelling at night before street lighting, and it predicts the time of high tide at London Bridge, where the wrong tide could kill a waterman. The case, built from oystershell-cut olive wood and floral marquetry, is credited on documentary grounds to Jasper Braem, a cabinetmaker who sublet part of Tompion's own Fleet Street workshop.The clock disappears from the record for roughly two and a half centuries after it was made, resurfacing only in 1933 in the hands of a London clock dealer's client, Francis Herbert Green. Green sold it to the New York dealer Arthur S. Vernay in 1934, who sold it on to the banker Henry Graves Jr. Graves is better known today for a wristwatch commission: the Metropolitan Museum's own catalogue of the piece states that he also owned the Patek Philippe watch that stood, for fifty-six years, as the most complicated mechanical watch ever made. The Tompion clock stayed in the Graves family until his granddaughter, Marilyn Preston Graves, bequeathed it to the Metropolitan Museum in 1999.It has never been sold at public auction; every transfer of ownership on record was a private sale or a bequest. It is not the other well-known Tompion associated with a royal sale, the silver-mounted Mostyn Tompion at the British Museum, a different clock entirely, made for a different king, sold at a different sale, and now in a different city's collection. ## Provenance Every link carries a grade. `documented` means a cited source supports it, `disputed` means the identification is argued but not established, `unknown` means we have no owner for that span and have not bridged it. - **ca. 1677-82** Made in Thomas Tompion's workshop, The Dial and Three Crowns, Fleet Street, London; case attributed to the cabinetmaker Jasper Braem `[documented]` (creation) The movement and dial are signed by Tompion and the attribution is undisputed. The case attribution to Braem, Tompion's documented tenant from 1677, is stated by the Metropolitan Museum's own catalogue as probable, not certain, on the basis of Braem's tenancy and known marquetry specialism rather than a maker's mark. - **ca. 1682-1933** Unknown `[unknown]` (gap) No owner is documented for roughly two and a half centuries between the clock's making and its first recorded appearance in 1933. No source consulted names an intermediate owner, sale, or location. - **by 1933-1934** Francis Herbert Green, London (a liveryman of the Clockmakers' Company; died 1936) `[documented]` (ownership and exhibition) Shown as number three in a loan exhibition of Tompion clocks at Green's own premises, 13 Royal Exchange, Cornhill, London, in 1933, reported at the time by the Illustrated London News. - **1934** Arthur S. Vernay, antiques dealer, New York `[documented]` (purchase and resale) Green sold the clock to Vernay on 8 February 1934; a photocopy of the bill of sale is held in the Metropolitan Museum's own files. Vernay sold the clock the same year to Henry Graves Jr. - **1934-1953** Henry Graves Jr., New York (1868-1953) `[documented]` (purchase) A member of a prominent New York banking family, and, per the Metropolitan Museum's own catalogue, the same collector who owned a Patek Philippe watch described as the most complicated mechanical watch ever made. - **1953-1999** By descent through the Graves family to Marilyn Preston Graves `[documented]` (inheritance) The Metropolitan Museum's own provenance note states the clock "descended through his family" to his granddaughter, Marilyn Preston Graves, without naming intermediate owners. - **1999-present** Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York `[documented]` (bequest) Bequeathed by Marilyn Preston Graves in 1999; accessioned as 1999.48.2. Never sold at public auction at any point in this chain, so far as the sources consulted record. ## Open questions - Where was the clock, and in whose hands, between its making (about 1677-82) and its first documented appearance in 1933 in Francis Herbert Green's collection? No source consulted names an owner across that roughly two-and-a-half-century gap. - Is the attribution of the case to Jasper Braem correct? The Metropolitan Museum's own catalogue states it as probable, resting on Braem's tenancy in Tompion's workshop and his documented marquetry skill, not on a maker's mark inside the case. - When were the anchor, back cock, and pendulum crutch replaced, and by whom? The Museum's catalogue records the replacements but gives no date for any of them. - When, and why, was the hood modified to slide forward rather than lift, a modification the Museum's own conservators later reversed? No source consulted dates this alteration. - Are the present skirt and feet original, later period replacements, or modern? The Museum's own catalogue states there is insufficient evidence to decide. - Exactly where in the 1677-1682 window was the clock made? The Museum's 2015 catalogue narrows the range but stops short of a single year, reasoning only that it was probably made earlier in that span than later. - What are Marilyn Preston Graves's own dates, and what was the precise line of descent from Henry Graves Jr. to her? The Museum's own provenance note states only that the clock "descended through his family" and does not name intermediate owners. ## Sources - [1] Metropolitan Museum of Art, collection object page, "Longcase clock with calendrical, lunar, and tidal indications, also known as the Graves Tompion", object 209296, accession 1999.48.2, including its Overview, Signatures/Inscriptions/Markings, and Provenance panels. - [2] Metropolitan Museum of Art, Open Access Collection API, object record 209296. - [3] Clare Vincent and Jan Hendrik Leopold, with Elizabeth Sullivan, European Clocks and Watches in The Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2015), entry 22, "Longcase Clock with Calendar (The Graves Tompion)", pp. 108-111. - [4] "Recent Acquisitions, A Selection: 1998-1999", The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, v. 57, no. 2 (Fall 1999), pp. 31-32. - [5] Wikimedia Commons, File:Longcase clock with calendrical, lunar, and tidal indications (The Graves Tompion) MET DT4371.jpg, extmetadata (LicenseShortName: CC0). - [6] Wikimedia Commons, File:Longcase clock with calendrical, lunar, and tidal indications (The Graves Tompion) MET DT4372.jpg, extmetadata (LicenseShortName: CC0). - [7] Wikipedia, "Thomas Tompion". Tertiary source, used only for the Banger partnership dates and the Westminster Abbey burial; flagged for replacement with Evans, Carter and Wright's 2013 catalogue raisonne where a copy can be consulted. - [8] Wikipedia, "Henry Graves (banker)". Tertiary source, used only for general biographical dates and the Patek Philippe commission; flagged for replacement with a dedicated biography or the Sotheby's 1999 and Pritzker 2014 sources cited within source 3. - [9] Bonhams, "A Small Olivewood Marquetry Longcase Clock, Thomas Tompion, London, pre-numbered, circa 1680, the case attributed to Jasper Braem", sale of 6 June 2018, New York, lot 62, sold for USD 162,500 including premium. - [10] Wikipedia, "Old London Bridge", for the documented danger of "shooting the bridge" and the tidal rapids created by the bridge's piers. Tertiary source, used only for general historical context on why a tide indication mattered. - [11] Fortunat Mueller-Maerki, review of Jeremy Evans, Jonathan Carter and Ben Wright, Thomas Tompion - 300 Years: A Celebration of the Life and Work of Thomas Tompion (Stroud, Gloucestershire: Water Lane Publishing, 2013), NAWCC Forums, 21 March 2014. - [12] Wikidata, Q116307170, "Longcase clock with calendrical, lunar, and tidal indications". --- Images on this record are public domain or CC0 and are hosted by us. No image on this site is generated or simulated. If you quote this record, quote the provenance grades with it.