Oval Watch Case with Aeneas carrying Anchises, from a Series of Six Designs for Watch Cases

Antoine Jacquard was active as a metalsmith in Potiers in the first half of the seventeenth century. He appears to have published his designs in print with some regularity throughout his career. They now form the only record of the kinds of objects he would have produced in his workshop. Their subjects range from designs for lock plates, sword hilts, and pommels, to finely-wrought watch cases such as these. This series consists of six sheets, each showing an oval watch case at center, either representing the clock face, or the verso of the case. At the top and bottom of the print decorative friezes are depicted which represent options for the decoration of the sides of the watch case. The prints have been partially executed in the blackwork technique, which may indicated that the watch cases were meant to be enameled, as was the fashion in the early seventeenth century. The prints are not bound, but the original holes where the series would have been tied together with a piece of rope are preserved in the generous margins of the prints.