FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129  
130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   >>  
ers always put in reliable works--there were no such works as those made by machinery and sold so cheaply to-day! The timepieces of early Victorian days are scarcely antiques, and few of them are treasured as such, although undoubtedly curious. Watches. The first step towards watches as we understand them was the manufacture of pocket clocks (many of which show Dutch influence in design), some of the cases of which were very beautiful. The watches which followed in due course were at first without glasses, and for the better protection of the works and of the delicate engravings and ornamentation of the backs and dials loose cases of metal or shagreen were made. Some of them were highly ornamental, little studs of gold or silver being arranged in geometrical and floral patterns on the exteriors. Two very pretty examples of such cases are shown in Fig. 88. [Illustration: FIG. 87--SPECIMENS OF OLD WATCH KEYS.] [Illustration: FIG. 88.--TWO ANTIQUE WATCH CASES.] Many of the watch backs were chased and perforated and beautifully enamelled; the dials were covered with painted miniatures, and gold watches were enriched with jewels. From Switzerland and Nuremberg come many choice examples; but there were clever watchmakers in England too, among them John Stevens, of Colchester, a sixteenth-century watchmaker noted for his pierced and engraved brass-gilt cases. Classical figures and designs showing Dutch influence became popular late in the seventeenth century; then fashions changed, and the Court of the Emperors of France exercised an influence over art in this and other countries, and watch cases and other lesser objects were made more or less in harmony. At one time curiously shaped cases were the fashion; at another octagonal watches, such as were made in the seventeenth century by Edmund Bull, of Fleet Street, who is said to have made an elliptic silver watch engraved all over with minute scriptural subjects. The collection of watches is a hobby indulged in by but few; there are, however, many single examples included in household curios, and not infrequently several handsomely engraved old watch cases are seen exhibited in the modern glass-topped curio tables so fashionable in twentieth-century drawing-rooms--now and then the interest in them being increased by the musical bells of the repeaters, many of which were made a century or more ago. Watch Keys. Keyless watches have been invented within th
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129  
130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   >>  



Top keywords:
watches
 

century

 

examples

 
influence
 

engraved

 

Illustration

 

silver

 

seventeenth

 

harmony

 

figures


Classical

 
pierced
 

fashion

 
shaped
 
curiously
 

Emperors

 

exercised

 

France

 

changed

 

fashions


popular

 

watchmaker

 

showing

 

objects

 

countries

 
lesser
 

designs

 

subjects

 

drawing

 

twentieth


interest

 

fashionable

 
tables
 

modern

 

topped

 

increased

 

musical

 

invented

 

Keyless

 

repeaters


exhibited
 
elliptic
 

minute

 

scriptural

 

collection

 
Edmund
 

Street

 
indulged
 
infrequently
 

handsomely