Pocket Watches · Pocket watch
Fine Gold Pearl Set Watch and Pendant, circa 1840
- Maker / attribution
- Unrecorded in source
- Date
- c. 1840
- Historical period
- Precision & Scientific Horology (1750 – 1850)
- Country of origin
- Unrecorded in source
- Object type
- Pocket watch
- Materials / technique
- gold
- Stock no.
- A10739
- Credit line
- Dealer listing, Pieces of Time (A10739)
- Catalogue title (original)
- Fine Gold Pearl Set Watch and Pendant (English)
View the source record (dealer listing) ↗ (opens another website in a new tab)Suggest a correction
Record summary
Catalogued by Pieces of Time (dealer), London (stock number A10739), this is a pocket watch, dated c. 1840. The Atlas places it in the Precision & Scientific Horology period (1750 – 1850) of its Pocket Watches collection. Materials and techniques recorded by the source: gold. The record is illustrated with 6 photographs.
Assembled from the source record's structured fields. Dates and attributions are given as the source states them; where a field is missing the Atlas leaves it blank rather than estimating.
Catalogue description
Dealer description — Pieces of Time
A mid 19 th Century Swiss cylinder in a fine gold case encrusted with split pearls with matching pendant. Unusual gilt three quarter plate keywind movement with resting barrel. Sector shaped cock with polished steel regulator and coqueret set with a garnet endstone. Plain three arm gilt balance with blue steel spiral hairspring. Polished steel cylinder, steel escape wheel. Fine engine turned gold dial, the Roman numerals and minute marking set with split pearls, gold hands. Very fine open face encrusted with split pearls, sprung front bezel opened by depressing a button in the pendant. The back entirely covered in split pearls in a pattern radiating in a cluster of pearls below the pendant. Set in a series of graduated rows from 0.7 mm to 3.5 mm at the edge. The space between the large split pearls filled with small pearls. Front bezel set with a single row of large split pears each surrounded by more split pearls. Gold pendant also encrusted with split pearls, pearl set gold bow. Matching gold pin and bar with heart shaped centre supporting a spring clip all set with graduated split pearls. Large gold oval key with engine turned centre. In fitted gilt tooled red morocco covered case marked “No. 5050” from the retailer Desoutter of Hanover Street, London.
Historical context
Precision & Scientific Horology (1750 – 1850)
Harrison solves longitude; Mudge invents the lever; Breguet's Paris workshop defines the modern watch.
From 1750 to 1850 the watch became a precision instrument. Mudge's lever escapement, the cylinder escapement, Lépine's thin bar calibre, Breguet's innovations (overcoil, tourbillon, perpétuelle) and the pocket chronometer of Arnold and Earnshaw all date from this period, while verge watches remained common in cheaper production.
Read the period in the timelineMore pocket watches from this periodEarlier: Early Modern Horology
Atlas type guide
Pocket watches
The pocket watch was the dominant personal timekeeper from the late seventeenth century until the First World War. Its development tracks the history of the escapement: verge watches with fusees until the late eighteenth century; Thomas Mudge's lever escapement (c. 1755) and the cylinder escapement popularised by George Graham and later by Swiss makers; and the Swiss and English lever watches of the nineteenth century. Lépine's bar-bridge calibre and keyless winding made watches thinner and easier to use.
Industrialisation transformed the trade: American factories such as Waltham (from 1850) and Elgin produced interchangeable parts by machine, and Swiss makers responded with their own mechanisation after the 1876 Philadelphia Exhibition. By 1900 a reliable watch was affordable to millions; the finest makers continued to produce complications and precision watches.
What to look for
- The escapement: verge (crown wheel), cylinder, duplex, English or Swiss lever.
- Key winding (a square arbor in dial or back) or keyless crown winding.
- Signatures and serial numbers on the movement, dial and inside case back.
- Hallmarks, case maker's marks and gold or silver standards stamped in the case.
- Dial material: enamel, silver, gold, later printed metal.
Dating clues
- Verge watches dominate before c. 1800; cylinder watches c. 1770–1900; lever watches after c. 1820.
- Keyless winding: increasingly common after c. 1860.
- Manufacturer serial number lists exist for Waltham, Elgin, Longines, Omega, Patek Philippe and others.
General guidance written by the Atlas editors about this kind of object. It is not a statement about this particular piece; for that, rely on the source record above and on physical examination.
Read next:Verge escapementDetached lever escapementFuseeIdentification Centre
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