case
- Museum number
- 1978,1002.711
- Description
-
Miniature-case or 'fausse montre' in chased two-colour gold in the form of flowers and leaves, set with rubies and bordered with pearls. Inside are two painted miniatures, one of a man, one of a baby. The suspension loop has a warranty mark.
- Production date
- 1800-1809 (circa)
- Dimensions
-
Diameter: 5.30 centimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- Text from catalogue of the Hull Grundy Gift (Gere et al 1984) no 444:
The mechanism for opening this case; similar to that of a watch of the period, suggests that it was made by a watch-maker. During the last years of the eighteenth century and the early years of the nineteenth century it was fashionable to wear two watch-cases, one containing a watch mechanism, the other a fausse montre (false watch) empty of any mechanism but which was sometimes used to contain miniatures or hair. This fashion first made its appearance in the 1770s; Mrs Lybbe Powys writes in her Diaries in 1777: 'Lord Villiers had a different and still finer dress, buttons and buckles quite in ton, viz., large to an excess, all the very fine men wear two watches' (Passages from the Diaries of Mrs Phillip Lybbe Powys, edited 1899, p.189). One of these was usually a fausse montre. Contemporary receipts reveal that while a gentleman's gold watch might cost 16 guineas in 1778, a fausse montre would be only 4 1/2 guineas (see Cunnington & Cunnington 1957, p.263). The 'macaroni' or hookless chatelaine which had a watch at each end, one of them a fausse montre, came into fashion at the end of the eighteenth century. By 1788 the Ipswich Journal noted of men's fashions: 'Very few with two watches. This fashion the gentlemen have now given up to the ladies' (quoted in Cunnington & Cunnington 1957, p. 264). As late as 1806 La Belle Assemblée (vol.1) was reporting on the current Paris fashions: 'Instead of a watch, the gentlemen wear a fausse montre, formed of a serpent, which bites its tail, which makes a circle.'
- Location
- On display (G47/dc8/p7/no29)
- Acquisition notes
- Unidentified auction (possibly Phillips). Original invoice for £16 to Anne Hull Grundy undated, described as 'Lot245; Louise XVI watch in coloured gold case, chased with flowers and mounted with an enamelled miniature portrait of a lady in a jewelled border, by Ageron of Paris'.
- Department
- Britain, Europe and Prehistory
- Registration number
- 1978,1002.711
- Additional IDs
-
Miscellaneous number: HG.711 (masterlist number)