Pocket Watches · Pocket watch
Gold and Enamel Chatelaine Watch, 1773
- Maker / attribution
- Unrecorded in source
- Date
- 1773 (hallmarked London)
- Historical period
- Precision & Scientific Horology (1750 – 1850)
- Country of origin
- Unrecorded in source
- Object type
- Pocket watch
- Materials / technique
- gold, enamel
- Stock no.
- A10923
- Credit line
- Dealer listing, Pieces of Time (A10923)
- Catalogue title (original)
- Gold and Enamel Chatelaine Watch (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 A10923), this is a pocket watch, dated 1773 (hallmarked London). 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, enamel. 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
An 18 th Century Scottish verge in a gold and enamel pair case with matching chatelaine. Full plate fire gilt movement, high count train wheels with six spoke crossings and pinions of eight leaves. Pierced and engraved cock, engraved foot and plate for the silver regulator disc. Fusee and chain with worm and wheel barrel setup between the plates. Plain three arm steel balance, blue steel spiral hairspring. White enamel dial with Arabic numerals, gold beetle and poker hands. Plain gold inner case, the marks indistinct. Gold and enamel outer case, maker’s mark “HB” in a serrated edged rectangle. The bezels with a row of white champleve enamel circles and blue champleve enamel decoration. Central oval cartouche of a classical urn in dark blue translucent champleve enamel bordered with white enamel. Above a tied ribbon of blue enamel and below translucent green champleve enamel of crossed psalm leaves. Fine matching chatelaine, the gilt clip faced with gold decorated in champleve enamel repeating the design on the case. Hanging from the clip are three matching gold faced gilt cartouches joined by gold rings and small enamelled cartouches. The watch secured to the lowest cartouche by a hinge and swivel hinged gilt clip with threaded safety collar. Two further chains of gold rings and small enamelled cartouches also hang from the clip each terminating in a gold spring clip with threaded safety collar. One chain has a gold crank key, now missing the shaft. Fitted in a shaped silk lined case covered in black shagreen.
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.
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