Champlevé Calendar Verge, Silver Pair Cases

At 52.2mm across the outer case, this is a full-sized Dutch pair-cased watch from the middle of the eighteenth century, and every part of it is Amsterdam work of that moment: a silver dial cut in champlevé with an arcaded minute track, a date window below the centre, and an outer case raised in repoussé.

The dial carries most of the character. The Roman hour ring sits between two bands of ornament, fleur-de-lis at the half hours on the inside and large Arabic minute figures from 5 to 60 set in arches around the edge, the figures polished and filled black against a matted ground so they read cleanly. At the centre a rococo cartouche holds the name in capitals, V. Oostrom, and beneath it the scrollwork closes around a small window showing the date on a gilt ring, which changes at midnight. Amsterdam makers had been fitting date windows to their watches since around 1700; here the window is drawn into the rococo ornament of the centre rather than set apart from it. Gilt hands, both pierced with scrolls.

The outer case is worked in repoussé with a crowded scene under a spreading tree. At the centre a figure sits inside an arched doorway, a man in a broad-brimmed hat stands to the right with a building behind him, and a second figure crouches at the left. A border of C-scrolls frames the scene, and the case is lined in red. The inner case is plain polished silver, with a cast collar at the pendant, a stirrup bow and a winding hole through the back.

The movement follows the dial in style. Its gilt plate is engraved with rococo scrolls around the script signature, A. v. Oostrom Amsterdam, and the balance sits under a Dutch bridge cock, pierced and engraved with foliage and screwed down at both ends. The calendar is driven from the motion work, so the date moves on with the hands when they are set by key.

It is a watch by a maker better known for his clocks, built to the Amsterdam pattern of its decade: champlevé silver dial, calendar, repoussé outer case and Dutch bridge cock.

The movement, the condition and the specifications are set out below.