A GEORGE III BAROMETER BY JOHN RUSSELL, Scottish, circa 1810
Width: 13 ½ in; 34.5 cm
Depth: 3 ½ in; 9 cm
Note: The royal pattern barometer retains all the original brass mounts. The top and bottom verre églomisé panels are of later date.
This barometer belongs to a small group of nearly identical banjo wheel instruments of exceptional quality made by the Scottish clockmaker John Russell. This type is referred to as the ‘Royal Pattern’ following Russell’s enterprising gift of one such barometer to the Prince of Wales, later Prince Regent and then George IV. Two mahogany examples and a rare gilded version are still in the Royal Collection at Buckingham Palace, London, inscribed on two of the dials ‘Watchmaker to his R H the Prince of Wales’, indicating manufacture prior to 1811. The third is inscribed ‘Watchmaker to his R H the Prince Regent’.
A contemporary account in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 6 July 1812 states:
On Monday, Mr. Russell of Falkirk, waited on his Royal Highness at Carlton House, when he had the honour of delivering a superb gold chronometer of his making, according to R.H. gracious order. His Royal Highness, with his usual condescension, was pleased to declare his satisfaction with this specimen of Mr. Russell’s workmanship.
An invoice from John Russell in the Royal Archives for a chronometer and two barometers amounts to £153 6s.
Provenance
Private collection, Ireland.
Private collection, England.
Literature
Nicholas Goodison, English Barometers 1680 - 1860: A History of Domestic Barometers and their Makers, 1969, pp. 233 - 5, pls 160 - 62.
Cedric Jagger, Royal Clocks: The British Monarchy and its Timekeepers, 1300 - 1900, 1983, p. 217, pl. 285.
Nicholas Goodison and Robin Kern, Hotspur - Eighty Years of Antiques Dealing, 2004, no. 10, pp. 255 - 6.
