Centuries of Time: A Private Collection

Centuries of Time: A Private Collection

View full screen - View 1 of Lot 1378. A gold and polychrome enamel painted pair cased quarter repeating verge watch with pulse piece and associated gold and enamel painted chatelaine Circa 1770, no. 1061.

Richard Wilder, London

A gold and polychrome enamel painted pair cased quarter repeating verge watch with pulse piece and associated gold and enamel painted chatelaine Circa 1770, no. 1061

Auction Closed

May 14, 02:23 PM GMT

Estimate

8,000 - 12,000 CHF

Lot Details

Description

Richard Wilder, London


A gold and polychrome enamel painted pair cased quarter repeating verge watch with pulse piece and associated gold and enamel painted chatelaine

Circa 1770, no. 1061 


• Movement: gilded full plate, verge escapement, fusee and chain, decoratively pierced and engraved balance cock, diamond endstone, silver regulation plate, repeating on a bell signed Drury to the reverse or via a pulse piece through bezel, gilt-metal dust cap, movement and dust capsigned and numbered Rich. Wilder, London, no. 1061

Dial: white enamel dial, Roman numerals, outer Arabic minute ring, gilt filigree hands

Case: gold inner case, decoratively pierced and engraved with scrolling foliage, a mask to the base and engraved with a bird to the back • gold outer case, the back polychrome enamel painted pastoral scene with restoration and depicting a young man playing pipes and serenading two ladies tending their sheep a dog at their feet, both bezels with translucent blue enamel over a decoratively engraved ground, heightened with scrolling gold motif, pierced at the quarters and around the painted scene for sound emission, plunge pendant for repeating, pulse piece through bezel of outer case by 7 o'clock, diamond-set thumbpiece, inner and outer cases with incuse maker's mark HT

Chatelaine: composed of polychrome enamel painted gold panels, two pendant chains terminating in hooks, the pendant hook's panel with classical allegorical scene, three suspended square panels each depicting a gentleman and a lady respectively with a song bird, basket of fruit and a basket of eggs, the panels flanked by pendant chains composed of slim links polychrome enamel painted with flowers, further asymmetrical panel with a gentleman and a lady joining the pendant chains and central panels, pendant hook with maker's mark PB beneath a crown


diameter 49 mm, length overall, length of chatelaine 115 mm

R. Chadwick, A Voyage Through Time, London: Unicorn, 2020, pp. 94-95.
Although little is recorded of the maker Richard Wilder, he is known to have formed a partnership with John Fladgate. Fladgate and Wilder worked from premises on Conduit Street, between Regent Street and New Bond Street in London; the partnership was dissolved in 1775. Britten notes in Old Clocks and Watches and their Makers, that Wilder was made a Liveryman of the Clockmakers' Company in 1776.