Early English gilt metal and silver watch with alarm Circa 1615

Gilt metal and silver watch with alarm
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An early English gilt metal and silver open faced verge watch, circa 1615. Full plate movement, verge escapement, pierced and engraved pinned on balance cock, plain steel balance, blued steel stop work for alarm and striking mechanisms and silver locking plate visible to the backplate, wheel and click set up, striking on a bell. Gilt dial engraved with flowers and foliage, putto holding blooms at 12, baskets of fruit and flowers a pair of squirrels and two strawberries by the movement catch, silvered chapter ring, Roman numerals, rotating central disc with blued steel bug for time indication, the alarm indicated by a central blued steel hand to the inner Arabic chapter ring. Gilt metal pierced and engraved case. The piercing and engraving to the case back is very open and the bell can clearly be seen. Within this decorative work, the scroll terminates in a head which is most likely that of a dolphin, an attribute of Fortune in Renaissance allegory. The early use of silver for the band emphasizes the quality and cost of the watch and, similarly, the dial’s silver chapter ring. As often found on watches of this date, the front cover has been reduced to a bezel that is now glazed. To the dial’s center, the time is indicated, not by the blued steel hand, but by a small blued steel ‘bug’ or pointer at the edge of the central gilt disc. The blued steel hand indicates the alarm time with Arabic numerals to the inner gilt ring.
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Diameter: 43 mm
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Signed: David Ramsay Scotte Me Fecit
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David Ramsay, b.c.1585 supposedly in Dundee (Scotland), worked in France then came to London. (Tothill Street, Westminster later in Holborn within ‘two doors of the Wounded Hart’) about 1610, appointed King’s Clockmaker in 1613 when he was granted a pension. In 1618 received a grant of the office of Chief Clockmaker to the King. In 1619 received a grant of denization, because he was born in Scotland. The first master of CC in 1632, by whom he was known as Squire Ramsay, but scarcely ever attended except between 1652 and 1654, when suffered under Commonwealth and voted himself grants from CC funds – d.1660. Sometimes signed T David Ramsay Scotus’