Pocket Watches · Cruciform watch
Gilt-brass and coloured glass cased verge watch in the form of a crucifix
- Maker / attribution
- Unrecorded in source
- Date
- 1630–1640
- Historical period
- Early Modern Horology (1600 – 1750)
- Country of origin
- Switzerland
- Place
- Switzerland
- Object type
- Cruciform watch
- Materials / technique
- glass, brass, gold
- Dimensions
- Length: 59 millimetres (case overall) Width: 38.20 millimetres (case)
- Holding institution
- British Museum
- Accession / object no.
- 1888,1201.188
- Credit line
- British Museum, London
- Catalogue title (original)
- Gilt-brass and coloured glass cased verge watch in the form of a crucifix (English)
View the source record ↗ (opens another website in a new tab)Suggest a correction
Record summary
Held and catalogued by British Museum (object number 1888,1201.188), this is a cruciform watch, made in Switzerland, dated 1630–1640. The Atlas places it in the Early Modern Horology period (1600 – 1750) of its Pocket Watches collection. Materials and techniques recorded by the source: glass, brass, gold. Recorded dimensions: Length: 59 millimetres (case overall) Width: 38.20 millimetres (case). 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
Description — British Museum
Movement frame: Cruciform shaped gilt-brass plates with rounded corners. Four twist baluster pillars. The pillar-plate is hinged to the case at XII. Mainspring & set-up: Gilt-brass barrel with tangent-screw set-up, the two brackets for the worm gear made of silver, pierced and engraved with foliate designs. The left hand bracket broken and mostly missing. Brass set-up wheel, the indicator now missing. Fusee & stop-work: Gilt-brass fusee with chain and standard stop-work. Train: Three wheel train. Escapement: Verge escapement, the crown wheel runs between riveted potence and counter potence. Brass 2-arm balance. DIAL & HAND The pillar-plate is gilded on the dial side and engraved with the Instruments of the Passion. At the transept of the cross is a pinned-on silver dial with Roman hours I-XII and cross half-hour marks surrounding a quarter-circle. In the centre, an engraved crucifix and a u-shaped label with an inscription. The dial is also inscribed on the reverse. Blued-steel hand. CASE Gilt-brass rims and hinged bezel engraved with stylised palm-leaf designs. The case body and lid made from green coloured glass. Possibly fake.
Curator's comments — British Museum
The movement appears to be a genuine 17th century example but the case is most likely to be of 19th century date. The style and quality of the engraved decoration around the case rims and the green glass case and lid do not suggest a 17th century date.
Inscriptions & marks
inscription; La croix ma sauvté [dial]; inscription; La Croix Ma Sauvée [on an applied silver label on the potence-plate]; inscription; BREVIO TRANS LI XV [around the reverse side of the dial]
Provenance
Bequeathed by:, Octavius Morgan; Acquired 1888
Historical context
Early Modern Horology (1600 – 1750)
Huygens' pendulum and balance spring transform accuracy; English makers develop the anchor and deadbeat escapements.
The balance spring (c. 1675) improved watches dramatically and introduced the minute hand. English pair-cased verge watches with pierced balance cocks and French oignons were typical; enamel painting at Blois and Geneva, and the repeating watch (1680s), made watches objects of great refinement.
Read the period in the timelineMore pocket watches from this periodEarlier: Renaissance Horology
Atlas type guide
Early spring-driven watches
Portable spring-driven timepieces appeared in southern Germany, France and Italy in the early sixteenth century; Peter Henlein of Nuremberg is traditionally credited, although the historical record is complex. These early watches were worn as pendants or carried, had iron or brass movements with a verge escapement and a foliot or small balance, and used a stackfreed or fusee to equalise spring force. They indicated hours only and were notoriously inaccurate.
From the later sixteenth century watches were made in Blois, Paris, Geneva, London and Augsburg in oval, octagonal, cruciform, skull and other 'form' cases of rock crystal, gilt brass, silver and enamel. They were jewellery and status objects as much as timekeepers.
What to look for
- A single hour hand and often a touch-pin hour ring for feeling the time.
- Stackfreed (a cam and spring) instead of a fusee on German watches.
- Pierced and engraved cocks over the balance, fine gut fusee lines.
- Rock-crystal, enamelled or engraved form cases.
Dating clues
- Drum-shaped German watches: c. 1530–1580.
- Oval and form watches: c. 1580–1650.
- Before c. 1675 there is no balance spring; watches can vary by many minutes a day.
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:FoliotThe Melanchthon watch
Related records
Pocket Watches · 1630
Pocket watch by A. Senebier, Switzerland, 1630
Science Museum Group, London
Pocket Watches · 1635-50
Silver, gilt brass and rock crystal watch in the form of a tulip, movement signed 'Senebier', Geneva, Switzerland, 1635-50
Victoria and Albert Museum, London
Pocket Watches · 1640-50
Gilt brass and crystal watch with an engraved silver dial, movement signed 'Charles Bobinet', Switzerland (Geneva), 1640-50
Victoria and Albert Museum, London
Pocket Watches · c. 1650
Watch by Denis Bordier, Switzerland, c. 1650
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Pocket Watches · c. 1650–60
Watch probably by Jean Rousseau the Younger, Switzerland, c. 1650–60
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Pocket Watches · c. 1660–80
Watch by Pierre Duhamel, Switzerland, c. 1660–80
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Pocket Watches · 1660–1670
Engraved silver watch with a gilt brass dial, signed 'Jean Rousseau', Switzerland (Geneva), 1660-70
Victoria and Albert Museum, London
Pocket Watches · c. 1675
Pocket watch by Abraham Caillatte, Switzerland, c. 1675
German Clock Museum