AN FINE GEORGE III GOLD AND ENAMEL TABLE-NECESSAIRE WITH WATCH MOVEMENT AND CONCEALED EROTIC SCENE

The Property of A COLLECTOR

AN FINE GEORGE III GOLD AND ENAMEL TABLE-NECESSAIRE WITH WATCH MOVEMENT AND CONCEALED EROTIC SCENE

Details

AN FINE GEORGE III GOLD AND ENAMEL TABLE-NECESSAIRE WITH WATCH MOVEMENT AND CONCEALED EROTIC SCENE
LONDON, CIRCA 1770, BY JAMES COX

Of rectangular form, decorated on all sides with shaped sable panels chased and enamelled with pointers, springer spaniels, pheasants, cranes, ducks, hares and exotic birds within burnished gold scroll cartouches and enamelled between with sprays of flowers, all in white, pink, blue and green hues, with borders of interweaving ribbons; opening to reveal a watch set in the cover, the verge movement signed Jas. Cox London 1000, the white enamel face with Roman numerals, the bezel chased with interlaced ribbons, the necessaire consisting of four gold-mounted perfume flasks with gold stoppers and five various implements, with a secret compartment to the cover painted with a doctor inspecting the charms of a lady with a magnifying-glass in a pharmacy, also set with a mirror--3 1/8in. (8cm.) long

Provenance

Christie's, Geneva, May 10, 1983, Lot 87

Lot Essay

James Cox, goldsmith and jeweller, specialised in watches and clocks with musical automata. For an authoritative account of his career, see Charles Truman, The Gilbert Collection of Gold Boxes, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1991, p.308. His numerous Chinese commissions known as "Sing-Songs" are complicated and often charming inventions. One of his most famous creations is the Peacock Clock made for Prince Potemkin for his Tauride Palace, today in the Winter Palace, St. Petersburg. One of the "curious clocks" made for the Emperor of China in 1766 is in the Jack and Belle Linsky Collection, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, while cabinet form necessaires by Cox are in the Gilbert Collection, Los Angeles and the Al-Tajir Collection, London. Both these collections also include snuff boxes fitted with automata and mounted en cage with agate panels with chased compartments similar to the present example. Charles Truman has pointed out the similarities between the interlaced scrolls on Cox's boxes and designs by Hubert-Francois Gravelot (1699-1773) for watchcases (ibid, p.308; Rococo, Art and Design in Hogarth's England, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 1984, I.14).

Cox appears to have been constantly on the verge of bankruptcy and during his career James Christie held a numbered of sales of his stock in trade. In 1773 Cox published a catalogue of his major automata to be disposed of by lottery, and in 1778 he was declared bankrupt. He appears to be dead by 1792, as on February 16 of that year Christie's held a further sale of his estate (Clare le Corbeiller, "James Cox: A Biographical Review", Burlington Magazine, June, 1970, pp. 351-358).