A GEORGE III GILT-COPPER AND PASTE-SET NECESSAIRE WITH WATCH

細節

A GEORGE III GILT-COPPER AND PASTE-SET NECESSAIRE WITH WATCH
Of canted rectangular form and chased with foliage overall, the domed hinged lid fitted with a timepiece within paste gem bezel with white enamel Roman dial with Arabic five minutes and cut gilt-metal hands, signed on the reverse 'Wm Bromley 1359 Horncastle', enclosing a fitted interior with twenty-one various implements, the sides with cut out cartouches backed by agate panels, on later seated lamb feet, the blade engraved 'AE TNA', some implements associated, the top simulated-agate panels broken, lacking two implements, the watch movement and setting of later date
4½ in. (11.5 cm.) high; 4¾ in. (12 cm.) wide; 3¾ in. (9.5 cm.) deep

拍品專文

The jewelled and golden 'necessaire', serving as a watch-stand/dressing-chest, has hollowed and fluted corners in the French/antique fashion; and, with its sheep caryatids and agate tablets framed by 'picturesque' rose-flowered Roman foliage, recalls pastoral Arcadia. Such exotic objets de vertu were retailed by fashionable London 'toy-shops' or museums, such as the 'Spring Garden Museum' opened in the 1760s by James Cox (d. 1791), who had been established as a jeweller and maker of automata or 'toys of the heart' since 1749. His son John Henry Cox, opened a branch of his manufactory in the British Compound at Canton in the early 1780s (see A. H. Weaving, 'Clocks for the Emperor', Antiquarian Horology, Summer 1991, pp. 367-390).
A related necessaire was sold by the late Sir James Caird Bt., in these Rooms, 24 November 1992, lot 81.