Silver cased verge watch with date indicator

Description — British Museum

Movement frame: Circular gilt-brass plates with four pierced Egyptian pillars. Potence-hole in the pillar-plate. Engraved decoration around the verge aperture. Riveted potence and riveted counter-potence. Mainspring & set-up: Gilt-brass barrel with dovetailed cap and riveted steel hook.… Tangent-screw set-up with a silver index engraved 1-8. Indicator missing and one of the steel brackets broken and partly missing. Fusee & stop-work: Gilt-brass fusee with chain and English stop-work. Train: Three wheel train of gilt-brass wheels, the second and contrate wheels possibly not original. The contrate has been dished to mesh with the crown wheel pinion and the second wheel is planted out of upright to mesh with the great wheel. Escapement & balance: Verge escapement, the crown wheel arbor shortened and running in a later, very long plug in the counter-potence. Verge and balance probably replaced. Screwed-on balance cock, pierced and engraved with scrolling foliage. Motion work: Pinion of report : 8 Dial wheel: 32 pinion: 10 Calendar wheel: 40 pinion: 4 Calendar ring: 62. Duration: Fusee has 10 turns, duration = 30 hours. : DIAL: Gilt-brass dial plate with three feet; four lugs around the edge engage in the case band. Within an outer hatched border, a riveted silver ring is engraved 1-31 for the date. Within this a revolving gilt-brass ring, with hatched decoration and a steel pointer, shows the date. Riveted silver dial with Roman hours I-XII and foliate half-hour marks surrounding a quarters circle. In the middle the dial is engraved with a design of realistic flowers. Single pinned-on blued-steel hand. There is no case catch. Only a brass stud at VI for lifting the dial and movement. Dial plate hinged to case at XII, dial plate pinned to movement. : CASE: Silver case with integral back and hinged, glazed bezel. The band and bezel engraved with gadroon borders. The main back is engraved with a scene showing the surrender of a town or city. Silver pendant with loose ring, the pendant marked with an indistinct punch-mark.

Curator's comments — British Museum

The engraved scene on the case back is possibly related to The Surrender of Breda, by Velasquez, now in the Prado Madrid. For a watch with a similar engraved scene see Nathan Rupp collection, cat.no 228 where a watch signed Jeremie Gregory has a dial showing the same subject.