English rare silver wandering hour verge watch Circa 1707

Silver pair cased wandering hour verge
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An English rare silver pair cased wandering hour verge watch, circa 1707, fire gilt full plate movement, verge escapement, large pierced balance cock engraved with the Royal Arms of Queen Anne, fusee and chain, Egyptian pillars, the dial with the embossed figure of Chronos drawing Helios’s chariot, semi-circular silver chapter ring for minutes to the upper edge of the dial, similar smaller semi-circular ring for the quarters beneath, in between a gilt metal rotating disc carrying an aperture for the hours which rises like the sun and travels to the right, indicating hours, quarter hours and minutes, disappearing to be replaced by the next hour, plain inner case and outer case with a square hinge.
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Diameter: 57 mm
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Signed: L’esturgeon London
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The balance cock of this watch is engraved with the Royal Arms adopted by Queen Anne after the Act of Union in 1707. Interestingly, another watch by David Lestourgeon, which dates to circa 1702, formerly in the Pierpont Morgan Collection, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY features a portrait of Anne’s predecessor, King William III on the back plate. The incorporation of these loyal Royal references may well represent a sense of national pride, celebrating the Union, and new hope and optimism for the coming century, after the considerable social and political upheavals of the 17th century.

Makers at the end of the 17th century were by no means wedded to the standard dial configuration of a concentric hour and minute hands, which had become more universal.  As a result, some unusual dial designs were devised particularly by English watchmakers. During this period there were four principal variations of dial design: the six hour dial, the wandering hour dial, the differential dial, and the sun-and-moon dial.

David Lestourgeon was a Freeman of the Clockmakers’ Company between 1698-1731.