11,500 CHF
Beauty and DignityThomas Beatson, London, No. 375, circa 1790.Very fine gilt metal pair-cased quarter-striking and repeating double-train clock watch, centre-seconds, made for the Oriental market. Outer: the back with an enamel panel of a peacock-tail design, of blue translucent enamel over radial guilloché, decorated with opaque green enamel and gold paillon crescents under a clear overglaze, the band with pierced and engraved foliate work. Inner: two-body, the band matching the outer case decoration, the back cover engraved with a leaf rosette, gilded dust cap. Notes The peacock-tail motif was popular towards the end of the eighteenth century and afterwards, particularly for watches destined for China. The Chinese Phoenix, sovereign of all birds, and a metaphor for persons of high virtue and rare talent, has peacock feathers. In Chinese culture, the peacock is an emblem of beauty and dignity, and its tail feathers were used, at the beginning in the Ming dynasty, to signify official rank.Beatson Thomasis recorded as having worked in London at the end of the 19th century.
Auctioneer:
Antiquorum
Date:
2001-03-31