Pocket Watches · Watch
Oval faceted gilt-brass and rock crystal cased verge watch
- Maker / attribution
- P Croymarie (Made by)
- Date
- 1630–1640
- Historical period
- Early Modern Horology (1600 – 1750)
- Country of origin
- France
- Place
- France
- Object type
- Watch
- Materials / technique
- silk, rock crystal, gold, brass, leather
- Dimensions
- Length: 41.40 millimetres (case including pendant and finial) Thickness: 19 millimetres Width: 27.10 millimetres
- Holding institution
- British Museum
- Accession / object no.
- 1874,0718.33
- Credit line
- British Museum, London
- Catalogue title (original)
- Oval faceted gilt-brass and rock crystal cased verge watch (English)
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Record summary
Held and catalogued by British Museum (object number 1874,0718.33), this is a watch by P Croymarie, made in France, 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: silk, rock crystal, gold, brass, leather. Recorded dimensions: Length: 41.40 millimetres (case including pendant and finial) Thickness: 19 millimetres Width: 27.10 millimetres. 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: Oval gilt-brass plates with four baluster pillars. Riveted potence and riveted counter-potence. Mainspring & set-up: Gilt-brass barrel with dovetailed cap and riveted steel hook. Tangent-screw set-up with two small steel brackets. Fusee & stop-work: … Gilt-brass fusee for gut line with standard stop-work. Train: Three wheel train, the second and contrate wheels un-gilded and probably replacements. Escapement & balance: Verge escapement with a gilt-brass crown wheel and steel 2-arm balance with wide rim. Gilt-brass foliate balance cock pinned to a stud on the potence-plate. DIAL: Engraved directly onto the front face of the pillar-plate is a design of scrolling foliage with a basket of fruits at the top. In the centre an applied silver dial with Roman hours I-XII and heart-shaped half-hour marks surrounding a central engraved landscape with buildings. Single blued-steel hand. CASE: Rock-crystal case with gilt-brass rims with engraved decoration. Faceted rock crystal case with a geometric pattern and thirteen roundels in the back. The lid is decorated in a similar manner to the back. Gilt-brass turned pendant with loose ring. gilt-brass turned finial. The back of the case is distressed, with some pieces now missing. Outer leather case lined with green silk and with tooled decoration around the band, closed with brass hinge, hook/latches [one missing]. Although now somewhat distressed, it appears to be original. Case-catch: Steel case-catch and spring screwed to inside of pillar-plate.
Inscriptions & marks
signature; P Croymarie [potence-plate]
Provenance
Previous owner/ex-collection:, Sir Charles Fellows; Bequeathed by:, Lady Harriet Fellows
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
Verge and pair-cased watches
After Christiaan Huygens and Robert Hooke applied the balance spring around 1675, the verge watch became a reasonably reliable timekeeper and the minute hand became standard. Through the eighteenth century the typical English watch was a pair-cased verge: a fusee movement with a pierced, engraved balance cock, housed in an inner case and a separate protective outer case, often of repoussé gold, shagreen, tortoiseshell or enamel.
French watches of the same period were thicker 'oignons', later replaced by elegant thinner watches following Jean-Antoine Lépine's bar-bridge calibre of c. 1770. Dutch, Swiss and German makers supplied international markets, and verge watches were made until the mid-nineteenth century as cheaper alternatives to the cylinder and lever.
What to look for
- The pierced balance cock on the backplate: winged (continental) or with a foot (English); its style dates the watch.
- Fusee and chain visible through the movement; key winding through the dial (early) or case back.
- Hallmarks inside English silver or gold cases, which give a date letter.
- Maker's name and serial number engraved on the backplate; watch papers inside outer cases.
- Enamel dials (after c. 1720) versus earlier champlevé metal dials.
Dating clues
- Champlevé dials: c. 1680–1730; white enamel dials thereafter.
- English case hallmarks give the year of assay to within a year.
- Verge watches persisted in cheap production until c. 1850.
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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