Antique Clock Sets between £0 and £0
A clock set, or garniture de cheminée, is a mantel clock sold with matching side pieces, usually a pair of candelabra, urns or vases made to stand with it on a chimneypiece.
What Is A Clock Set?
The form began in France, where a clock made as a suite with its side ornaments became standard drawing-room furnishing in the 18th century and was made in very large numbers through the 19th. Dealers use "set" and "garniture" to mean the same thing, and titles often spell out the count: three piece, 3 piece, 3pc.
Just over half of all titles on Sellingantiques carry the word "french", which makes national origin the one thing you can predict before opening a listing. The build that repeats is marble or slate with gilt-bronze or ormolu mounts, in a three-piece arrangement of clock plus two side pieces. Portico cases, four-glass cases and onyx bases all turn up within it.
Dating clusters hard in the second half of the 19th century, with the 1880s and 1890s the two busiest decades. A good many listings give only "19th Century" or "Victorian" rather than a decade, so read a dealer's decade as an estimate unless the title carries a circa year.
Two smaller branches sit alongside. Porcelain-bodied and porcelain-panelled sets are a standing minority, some with painted and gilt panels set into the case. Then comes the 1920s and 1930s tail: Art Deco sets in marble, onyx and chrome with bronze animal or figure groups, panthers, a greyhound, elephants, cubist cats, and nothing else in the archive resembles them. A handful of listings pair a clock with a barometer, thermometer or inkstand instead of candelabra.
Where The Range Splits
Material of the mounts does most of the sorting. Ormolu and gilt bronze cluster through the upper half of the sampled range, while slate, black marble and plain gilt metal dominate the lower end. The stone matters too: sienna, rouge and specimen marbles read differently from plain black slate, even in the same shape of case.
Decoration and modelling lift a set further. Porcelain panels, champlevé and cloisonné enamel sit consistently in the upper reaches, and so does sculptural work: cherubs, dolphins, eagles, Nike and Venus in the 19th-century sets, panthers and greyhounds in the Deco ones. A plain marble case with applied swags sits well below a figural bronze group.
Scale is advertised more than it is measured. "Large" appears in over forty titles and "huge" in ten, and those concentrate toward the top, while small, miniature and petite boudoir garnitures sit low. A signed movement or a named maker in the title also pushes a set up; unattributed "French clock set" titles sit lower.
Retail Price Guide 2026
Typical UK retail prices for clock sets between £0 and £0, calculated from the Sellingantiques database of over a million retail prices indexed since 2003. This retail price guide relies exclusively on Sellingantiques data; no external sources or auction records are used, so the figures do not describe the wider market.
One-offs that have passed through include an Egyptian Revival set with a pair of obelisks, a lyre-shaped porcelain clock, and a cathedral-form garniture under its dome.
Japy Frères
The Antique Clock Sets between £0 and £0 Glossary
- Garniture
- The matching side pieces sold with the clock, usually a pair. Dealers also use the word for the whole set, and it appears in around a quarter of titles.
- Three-piece
- Clock plus two side pieces, the standard configuration. Written variously as 3 piece, three piece or 3pc.
- Ormolu
- Gilded bronze or brass mounts and figures, often paired with marble in these titles. Gilt bronze is the same thing described more literally, and a few listings say gilt metal instead.
- Portico
- A clock case built as a columned architectural frame, usually in marble.
- Four glass
- A glazed case with the movement visible on all four sides, sometimes called a crystal regulator. Onyx often turns up in these, and again in Art Deco sets.
- Visible pendulum
- An aperture in the dial or case that shows the pendulum bob, named in several gilt-bronze sets.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many pieces are in a clock set?
Three is the standard: the clock and two matching side pieces, most often candelabra or urns. Titles that state a count almost always say three.
Dealers write it as "3 piece", "three piece" or "3pc", and some skip the number and just say garniture.
What does garniture mean on a clock listing?
Garniture de cheminée is the French term for a clock made as a suite with matching ornaments for a chimneypiece. On Sellingantiques the word appears in roughly a quarter of titles.
Dealers use "set" and "garniture" interchangeably, so the two words describe the same thing.
Are antique clock sets usually French?
Yes. Just over half of all titles contain the word "french", which makes it the single most predictable feature of the category.
Black Forest is the rarest recurring origin, with only a handful of mantel sets against the French mass, and those sit high in the range.
Which period do most sets date from?
The second half of the 19th century, with the 1880s and 1890s the two busiest decades by a clear margin, followed by the 1860s and 1870s.
The dated field runs from 1750 to 1960, but 18th-century entries are isolated one-offs. A large block of listings gives only "19th Century" or "Victorian" without a decade.
Do Art Deco clock sets appear in this category?
They do, and they form their own group of around thirty titles dated to the 1920s and 1930s.
The bodies are marble, onyx and chrome, with bronze animal or figure groups on top: panthers, a greyhound, elephants, cubist cats. Nothing else in the archive looks like them.
What are porcelain-mounted sets?
Sets where the case is porcelain, or where painted and gilt porcelain panels are set into a gilt-bronze or marble case. They are the standing minority, around one in ten titles.
Imari and named German factories surface only once or twice each. Porcelain and enamel decoration sits consistently toward the top of the range.