Pocket Watches · Alarm watch
Silver-cased verge watch with alarm and date indicator
- Maker / attribution
- Cornelius Harbart (Made by); Drury (Bell made by)
- Date
- 1680–1690
- Historical period
- Early Modern Horology (1600 – 1750)
- Country of origin
- England
- Place
- London (England)
- Object type
- Alarm watch
- Dimensions
- Diameter: 56 millimetres (case) Diameter: 43.80 millimetres (dial) Thickness: 32 millimetres
- Holding institution
- British Museum
- Accession / object no.
- 1958,1201.2348
- Credit line
- British Museum, London
- Catalogue title (original)
- Silver-cased verge watch with alarm and date indicator (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 1958,1201.2348), this is an alarm watch by Cornelius Harbart, made in London (England), dated 1680–1690. The Atlas places it in the Early Modern Horology period (1600 – 1750) of its Pocket Watches collection. Recorded dimensions: Diameter: 56 millimetres (case) Diameter: 43.80 millimetres (dial) Thickness: 32 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
Full plate with two balluster pillars and three tulip pillars. Mainspring barrel with tangent-screw set-up. Fusee with chain and standard stop-work. Four-wheel going train. The centre wheel and third pinion recessed into the front plate and running in a separate bridge. Verge escapement. Plain steel balance with off-set crossings to clear winding square. Spiral steel balance spring with geared regulator, the silver index disc numbered 1-6 with arrowhead markers between; the indicator in the form of a unicorn. Pierced and engraved floral balance-cock. Alarm train powered by a fixed barrel with a pierced foliate wall panel. Silver champlevé dial with an outer circle in 1-31 for the date indicated by a silver pointer on a blued-steel ring. Hours I-XII round a circle divided to quarter hours. Central alarm-setting disc with a pointer at 12 to indicate the time. Central blued-steel alarm-setting hand. Plain silver case with two winding hole covers on the back. Hinged glazed bezel. Inside the raised case rim is pierced with alternate circles and lozenge apertures to allow the sound of the bell to escape. The case hinge is porbably modified from a square profile.
Inscriptions & marks
signature; back-plate; Cornelius Harbart London; bell maker's mark; Drury
Provenance
Previous owner/ex-collection:, Courtenay Adrian Ilbert; Purchased through:, Christie's; Acquired 1958
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.
Read next:Verge escapement
Related records
Pocket Watches · 17th century
Watch by John Bushman, England, 17th century
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Pocket Watches · c. 1610-1620
Case and dial of engraved silver and gilt brass. English, about 1640.
Victoria and Albert Museum, London
Pocket Watches · c. 1610
Watch by N. Ridgdale, England, c. 1610
Victoria and Albert Museum, London
Pocket Watches · c. 1620–25
Watch by Isaac Symms, England, c. 1620–25
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Pocket Watches · 1622–1628
Pocket watch by James Vautrollier, England, 1622–1628
Science Museum Group, London
Pocket Watches · 1625
Pocket watch by David Ramsay, England, 1625
Science Museum Group, London
Pocket Watches · c. 1635
Jewellery, England
Victoria and Albert Museum, London
Pocket Watches · 1630
Pocket watch by G Petit, England, 1630
Science Museum Group, London