A rare George III scarlet japanned eight-day longcase clock with alarm, Robert Higgs and Diego Evans, London, circa 1775 The five pillar rack and bell striking movement with anchor escapement regulated by seconds pendulum and transverse alarm mechanism positioned to the right hand side of the movement with verge hammer sounding in the hour bell, the 12 inch brass break-arch dial with alarm setting disc, recessed subsidiary seconds dial, calendar aperture and shaped silvered signature plate engraved Higgs y, DIEGO EVANS, LONDRES to the finely matted centre within slender silvered Roman numeral chapter ring with Arabic five minutes to outer track, with pierced steel hands and rococo scroll cast spandrels to angles beneath TOCAR/SILENCIO subsidiary strike selection ring flanked by conforming mounts to arch, in a scarlet red japanned case with gilt painted shaped upstand over break-arch cavetto cornice and conforming scroll pierced fretwork frieze, the hood door with alternating gilt floral trail and trellis band decoration and applied with three-quarter columns to front angles, the sides with rectangular windows and conforming quarter columns set against bargeboards at the rear, the trunk with grotesque mask centred floral trail painted throat over ‘block-top’ break-arch door decorated in raised polychrome and gilt with oriental figures within a stylised garden trellis landscape, the surround with abstract foliate scroll painted upper quadrants and geometric banded borders flanked by reeded quarter columns to the front angles, the sides with large leafy sprays, the plinth base with raised shaped panel decorated with equestrian scene of hunters trapping a tiger, on shallow skirt with block feet, 236cm (93ins) high. Robert Higgs is recorded in Baillie, G.H. Watchmakers & Clockmakers of the World as apprenticed in 1743 and gaining his Freedom of the Clockmaker's Company in 1750. He worked from Sweetings Alley and took his brother Peter into partnership in 1770. James Evans is recorded by Baillie as also working from Sweetings Alley from 1773. In 1775 he went into partnership with Robert and Peter Higgs; the firm subsequently moved to Exchange Alley and continued in business until around 1825. The partnership of Higgs and James Evans specialised in producing clocks for the export market - particularly to Spain hence a significant proportion of surviving examples (including the current lot) being annotated and signed in Spanish.