PDF Download - Bloomsbury Auctions

DONNINGTON PRIORY
182
A fine and rare early Germanic pierced gilt brass clock watch
Unsigned, early 17th century
The gilt full plate verge fusee movement with baluster turned pillars, later sprung three-arm brass balance and plain backcock,
standing barrels for both the strike train and alarm each sounding on a pork pie shaped bell within the rear cover, the backplate with
recessed countwheel driven by a spur pinion engaging with teeth to the inside rim, worm set-up for the fusee mainspring, stopwork
for the alarm and now engraved with various Hebrew characters, symbols and a bird standing beside a conifer, the dial with blued
steel hand now fixed to a rose centre engraved gilt brass alarm disc annotated anticlockwise with Arabic numerals to outer edge
within applied silvered Roman numeral chapter ring with quarter hour divisions to inner track and triform half hour markers, the
surround decorated with twelve hatched panels, the two-part twelve sided case with bell fitted to the inside of the rear cover
decorated with symmetrical pierced scrolling strapwork and now engraved with the twelve Hebrew tribes above arcade pierced
girdle, the front cover pierced to resemble a rose window and now with further engraved script to angles, the base with turn clasp
and threaded panel for a pendant finial (lacking) the top with a post fitted with a suspension ring, 6.1cm wide.
The current lot can be dated to the early years of the 17th century due to the provision of a fusee for the going train and the use of
brass for the wheelwork. During the latter years of the 16th century German makers adopted the fusee in preference to the
stackfreed to equalise the power of the mainspring and moved away from the use of steel for the wheelwork. The recessed
countwheel (driven by a spur pinion engaging with teeth to the inside of the rim) is typical of German practice of the period and is a
remarkable feat of workmanship and can be compared to a slightly earlier stackfreed example housed in The Basingstoke Museum
and illustrated in Camerer Cuss, T.P. The Camerer Cuss Book of ANTIQUE WATCHES Plate 6 (page 52).
The design of the case is perhaps a little old fashioned for a watch dating to the early 17th century but is conceived to facilitate the
easy passage of sound out of the watch and for the time to be read without opening the front cover. Such cases passed out of favour
during the early decades of the 17th century with the fashion moving towards fully enclosed models, often with finely decorated
external surfaces.
£3,000-5,000
70 www.dnfa.com tel. +44 (0) 1635 553 553