Tall Case Clock Dial
about 1760

Complex machine, decorative piece of furniture, powerful status symbol
This brass dial fitted into a blue-lacquered clock case that stood in the house of the Ryerson family of Brooklyn, NY. The Ryersons, who had arrived in New York from the Netherlands in 1646, purchased the 8-foot tall clock about 1760. Clocks were rare in America at this time and were often a family's most expensive possession. Often, they served less as practical timekeepers and more as powerful symbols of status and order. The case of this one is decorated lavishly in the mid-18th-century style of japanning (or varnishing), with raised human figures and buildings vaguely Asian in appearance and a sprinkling of stylized, gilded flowers and animals.

	"Japanning" is the process of applying a hard clear varnish, in imitation of Asian techniques.
	The clock was probably assembled and finished by Isaac Rogers, who worked in London between 1748 and 1776.
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