Centuries of Time: A Private Collection

Centuries of Time: A Private Collection

View full screen - View 1 of Lot 1301. A rare and small silver puritan watch Circa 1635 .

Raphe Ashe, London

A rare and small silver puritan watch Circa 1635

Auction Closed

May 14, 02:23 PM GMT

Estimate

5,000 - 7,000 CHF

Lot Details

Description

Raphe Ashe, London


A rare and small silver puritan watch

Circa 1635


• Movement: gilded full plate, verge escapement, plain flat two-arm balance, pinned- on irregular balance cock with long foot decoratively pierced and engraved with scrolling flowers and foliage, blued steel wheel and click set-up, decorative border to edge of backplate, fusee and gut line, vase-shaped pillars, signed Raphe Ashe, London

• Dial: plain silver dial, gilded chapter ring with Roman numerals and half-hour divisions, single blued steel hand with tulip-form tip

• Case: plain silver case with shuttered winding aperture to back, gilded ring to inside lid for glass retention secured with three screws, plain ring pendant, short turned terminal


length including pendant and terminal 50mm (39mm without), width 32.5mm

Two early English makers by the name of Ashe are recorded, however,  Loomes suggests that they may well be one and the same person. Ashe was a subscriber for the incorporation of the Clockmakers' Company in 1630. He had several apprentices, and in 1656 joined the rebels against the administration of the Clockmakers' Company (see: Brian Loomes, The Early Clockmakers of Great Britain, 1981, p. 59). Typical of the so-called 'Puritan' style, this watch has a very plain design, lacking any decorative engraving to its dial or case. The engraved border to the movement's backplate, the chapter ring without quarter hour divisions and the short terminal to the case would all suggest a date no later than the mid-1630s. Two watches of similar date, dimension and style by David Bouquet and Edmund Bull are illustrated in Terence Camerer Cuss, The English Watch, 1585-1975, ACC, 2009, pp. 56-58.