Lot 206 , A Japanese shitan wood wall clock, shoku dokei, 19th century, Provenance - A. T. Arber-Cooke

A Japanese shitan wood wall clock, shoku dokei, 19th century, 38cm high, together with a book on Japanese clocks Provenance - A. T. Arber-Cooke
Estimate £200-300

The cable attached to the weight unfortunately has broken so we are not able to see if the clock is going but all the parts seem to be complete, there is quite a large gap for the glass panel on the left hand side which is slightly loose, it looks as though a lot of joins on the superstructure have been re-glued but all the original parts are there, comes complete with the original key in a small drawer in the base, the weight is still inside the shaft which is attached to a pointer and the engraved markers on the shaft still slide up and down ok, movement looks like it will require a clean, otherwise in reasonable condition, comes with a book, The Clocks of Japan by Ryuji Yamaguchi, 2nd Edition Revised 1950.


Provenance - Alfred Theodore Arber-Cooke (c.1905-1993); thence by family descent. Arber-Cooke was an antiquarian and avid collector of Asian works of art, and antiquities principally collecting from the 1930s to the 1970s. He amassed a good reference library on Chinese & Asian coins and wrote on several occasions (1969-70) to to the academic F.A. Turk regarding the study of coin amulets and other non-currency coinages of China. A number of the Asian numismatic reference books will be offered in our 29th March sale.

Arber-Cooke initially lived in Wimbledon, Greater London and was involved with the Surrey Archaeological Society. He wrote the book 'Old Wimbledon', with a foreword the MP Sir Arthur Fell, published in 1927. He later moved to Llandovery in Carmarthenshire, Wales, again involved with local archaeology and wrote the History of Llandovery, published in 1975.


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Sold for £1,400