Watch
Artist: Moricand & Company (Geneva, Switzerland; active before c. 1791)
The sober decoration of this watch is characteristic of its time. Instead of offering an elaborate scene, portrait, or bouquet of flowers, it features an engine turned, spiral pattern with translucent royal blue enamel bordered by thin white enamel and gold rings. The half-pearls on the bezel enhance the appearance of the blue enamel and lend refinement to the case, Half-pearls also decorate the bezel around the white enamel dial. Delicate hands made of tapering rings ending in arrows add elegance to the design.
This watch would have been part of a macaroni chatelaine, suspended from a swivel at one end while other articles, including a key and a seal arranged between decorative tassels, would have hung at the other. The engine-turned translucent enamel decoration and the half-pearl edging decoration and the half-pearl edging motifs would have been repeated on the key and seal.(1)
1. For illustrations of other macaroni chatelaines with enameled watches with half-pearls, see Reinhold Meis, Pocket Watches from the Pendant Watch to the Tourhillon, trans. Dr. Edward Force (Atglen, Pa.: Schiffer Publishing, 1987), p. 107, fig. 170; and Genevieve E. Cummins and Nerylla D. Taunton, Chatelaines: Utility to Glorious Extravagence (Woodbridge, Suffolk, Eng.: Antiques Collectors' Club, 1994), p. 74.
