Richard Vick, London

• gilt full plate verge movement, silver winged masked balance cock with decorative pierced and engraved scrolls and dolphins, diamond endstone, fusee and chain, gold champlevé dial, Roman numerals, outer Arabic minute track, aperture for date • plain gold inner case, pendant with stylised floral boss to the top, gold repoussé outer case signed AH for Augustin Heckel and with scene depicting the Commedia dell'Arte • inner case hallmarked 1738 and with indistinct maker's mark, dial and movement signed, movement numbered 557

Sotheby's, London, 7th February 1972, lot 197

Sotheby's London , 13th June 1980, lot 268

Terence Camerer Cuss, The English Watch 1585-1970, p. 191, pl. 104
Richard Edgcumbe, The Art of the Gold Chaser, p. 60 and fig. 40

The repoussé scene is by Augustin Heckel (circa 1690-1770) and depicts the Commedia dell'Arte with a Harlequin surprising two lovers whilst Pierrot looks on. Outside the symmetric cartouche, between swags of flowers, are four heads of, presumably, the players with Harlequin below the pendant. Richard Edgcumbe illustrates this watch in his Art of the Gold Chaser, see figure 40 and suggests that the scene is a conflation of two compositions by J.-A. Watteau (1684-1721). 

Augustin Heckel, born in Augsburg came to London, sometime between 1715 and 1720.  He set up a business as a watch case engraver, painter, and draughtsman. Heckel was considered one of the finest casemakers of the period. For biographic details on this maker as well as illustrations of his work see Edgecumbe,  op. cit., pp.56-58 and figs. 38-56.

Richard Vick, is recorded as apprenticed in 1692, free of the Clockmakers Company in 1702, and became the Company's  Master in 1729.  He was also recorded as keeper of the Clocks in the King's palace, see G.H. Baillie, Watchmaker and Clockmaker's of the World, Second edition, p.27

For a discussion on Richard Vick, see lot 42.