Watch

During the seventeenth century, watchcases made by French enamelers include some of the most magnificent examples ever produced. The enameled scenes on this watchcase are beautiful demonstrations of the variety of enameling on a pure white ground, which at its best rivaled miniature painting on paper or parchment. Developed in France about 1630, the technique is generally ascribed to Jean I Toutin (1578–1644). The earliest watchcases enameled in this technique probably originated in Blois, a French city known for both its enameling and its watchmaking,[1] where the enamelers were under the special protection of Gaston, duc d’Orléans (1608–1660), who was also the brother of the the king of France. Paris was an early and important center of enamel production as well, and Toutin’s son Henri (1614–1684) settled there in 1636, as we know from an inscription on the reverse of an enameled portrait of King Charles I (1600–1649) of England, which is now in the Mauritshuis Royal Art Gallery in The Hague.[2] Henri signed a gold watchcase with painted enamel scenes alluding to the marriage in 1641 of the Stadtholder of the United Provinces, William II, Prince of Orange (1626–1650) to Mary Stuart (1631–1660). Now in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam,[3] the watchcase is an extraordinary work of art, and its design was perhaps originally conceived by Henri Toutin.



Most enamelers, however, were not creative artists. As an increasing number of sources have been identified from which the painters of enameled watchcases took their designs, it now seems safe to say that most, if not all, of these painters were content to reproduce in miniature the work of other artists. Most of the enamelers remain anonymous, and usually the style of their enamels reflects the style of the artist whose work they reproduced.[4]



The scenes on the exteriors, both front and back, of this watch provide an excellent example of the propensity to reproduce not only the design but also the style of their prototypes, and both were inspired by the paintings of Simon Vouet (1590–1649), First Painter to King Louis XIII. With certain modifications made chiefly to fit the circular shape of the watch, the biblical scene of the Virgin and Child with an Angel on the back of the case is the reproduction of an engraving by Pierre Daret (1605–1678), based on a Vouet painting. As the watchcase figures are oriented in the same direction as the figures in the print, it seems reliable to conclude that the enameler was, in fact, working from the print, because in the original painting, now in the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Caen, the composition is reversed. The scene on the front cover of the watch depicts Joseph Awakened by the Angel and retains the orientation of the two figures found in another engraving based on a Vouet painting, this one made by Michel Dorigny (1617–1665) (45.91(16)). Like the scene of the Virgin and Child with an Angel, this scene preserves the style and immediacy of Vouet’s vision, although in this case, the original painting is lost.[5]



Two other religious scenes, the Rest on the Flight into Egypt and the Virgin and Child with the Infant Saint John the Baptist, are represented on the interior of the case and on the cover of the watch, respectively. The origin of the former so far remains unidentified, but the latter has been recognized as an adaptation of an engraving by Gilles Rousselet (1610–1685), which depicts the Holy Family with the Infant Saint John the Baptist and in turn records a painting by Jacques Stella (1596–1657), another French artist from the generation of Vouet.[6] Stella’s delightfully domestic vignette depicts the Christ Child astride a lamb that is enticed by a handful of flax proffered by the infant Saint John and at the same time urged on with a twig wielded by the Child, who is steadied by the Virgin’s protective hand. The sweetness of Stella’s vision as reflected in the watchcase enamel is far removed from Vouet’s robust imagery, but there is no reason to suppose that the scene on the interior of the watchcase is the product of a different enameler than that of the two scenes on the exterior of the watch.



The single hand of this watch indicates the hours (I–XII) and half hours only. At some point, probably later in the seventeenth century, the balance for its verge escapement was fitted with a spring, and a silver figure plate used to regulate the balance spring was attached to the back plate covering part of the watchmaker’s signature. The addition of the spring, an invention in late 1674 by the Dutch mathematician Christiaan Huygens (1629–1695), would have greatly increased the accuracy of the watch, making it not only a treasured ornament but also a useful timekeeper.



The watch entered the collection of J. Pierpont Morgan before 1912.[7] Nothing is known of its previous owners.



Notes (For key to shortened references see bibliography in Vincent and Leopold, European Clocks and Watches in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. NY: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2015)



[1] Develle 1913, pp. 26–27. See also Fourrier 2004, pp. 100–101, 123–25.

[2] Schaffers-Bodenhausen and Tiethoff-Spliethoff 1993, pp. 19–20, and fig. 12.

[3] Brusa 1978, p. 105, nos. xvii/xx and color ill. nos. xvii/xx; Cardinal 1989, pp. 138–39, and figs. 104a, 104b.

[4] See Vincent 2002, pp. 89–95.

[5] Ibid., p. 90, figs. 3, 4, and p. 91, figs. 5–7.

[6] Ibid., p. 93, fig. 12, and p. 97, fig. 21.

[7] Williamson 1912, pp. 47–48, no. 45.