Pocket Watches · Form watch
Silver cased verge watch in the form of a dog
- Maker / attribution
- Jaques Joly (Made by)
- Date
- 1655–1665
- Historical period
- Early Modern Horology (1600 – 1750)
- Country of origin
- Switzerland
- Place
- Geneva (city)
- Object type
- Form watch
- Materials / technique
- silver
- Dimensions
- Height: 38.50 millimetres (case) Length: 41 millimetres Width: 25 millimetres
- Holding institution
- British Museum
- Accession / object no.
- 1888,1201.206
- Credit line
- British Museum, London
- Catalogue title (original)
- Silver cased verge watch in the form of a dog (English)
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Record summary
Held and catalogued by British Museum (object number 1888,1201.206), this is a form watch by Jaques Joly, made in Geneva (city), Switzerland, dated 1655–1665. The Atlas places it in the Early Modern Horology period (1600 – 1750) of its Pocket Watches collection. Materials and techniques recorded by the source: silver. Recorded dimensions: Height: 38.50 millimetres (case) Length: 41 millimetres Width: 25 millimetres. The record is illustrated with 4 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 Tapering oval gilt-brass plates with four baluster pillars. ---- MAINSPRING & SET-UP Gilt-brass barrel with tangent-screw set-up mounted on the potence plate. The left hand pierced steel bracket now broken and missing, the indicator also now missing. Silver index disc engraved 1-6. ---- FUSEE AND STOP-WORK Gilt-brass fusee probably not original, with chain and English stop-work, the chain now missing. The stop-work spring not original. ---- TRAIN Three-wheel train, but only the great wheel remains and this may be a replacement. ---- ESCAPEMENT AND BALANCE Verge escapement with a gilt brass crown wheel running between riveted potence and counter-potence. The verge and steel 2-arm balance are not original. Pierced and engraved foliate balance-cock screwed to the potence-plate. ---- DIAL The outer surface of the pillar-plate is engraved with a design of scrolling foliage which surrounds an applied circular silver dial with Roman hour numerals I-XII and elongated triangular half-hour marks. At the centre is an engraved seeded rose. ---- CASE Cast silver case in the form of a dog. Attached to its integral collar is a ring for hanging the watch on a ribbon or chain. The lower part of the dog consists of a hinged silver lid, with hinge at the front.
Curator's comments — British Museum
Bibliography: Cardinal, Catherine, LA MONTRE, 1985, illus.90, p.123.
Inscriptions & marks
signature; Jaques Joly [potance-plate]
Provenance
Bequeathed by:, Octavius Morgan
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
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