Decorative Dutch gilt metal verge with date Circa 1725

Gilt open faced verge watch with date
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A fine Dutch gilt metal and enamelled copper pocket watch with date, circa 1725. Fire gilt full plate verge movement with elaborate pierced and engraved pillars, fusee and chain, verge escapement, plain brass threearm counter poise balance, two footed cock pierced and engraved with inhabited foliage, rack and pinion regulator.
The case back is very finely painted depicting Ariadne and a cherub, the band painted with continuous lakeside scenes, the enamel inside of the case showing a lake, folly and traveller, painted en camaieu de rose after an engraving by Gabriel Perelle, the enamelling attributed to André Jean.
Silver champlevé dial with Roman hours and half-hour indication, an outer minute ring with Arabic five minute numerals, blued steel beetle & poker hands.
Signed on the dial and the back plate.
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Diameter: 48 mm
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Signed: Pieter Klock Amsterdam
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Ariadne was the daughter of Minos, king of Crete. She was seduced by Theseus when he came to fight the Minotaur and helped him to escape from the labyrinth by giving him a ball of string which he gradually unwound and followed to find his way back out. Ariadne left Crete with Theseus but was abandoned by him at Naxos. The lonely Ariadne was discovered by Bacchus, who threw her crown into the skies, forming a new constellation, and then married her amid lavish celebrations. The most famous depiction of the Triumph of Bacchus and Ariadne is the fresco on the ceiling of the Palazzo Farnese in Rome painted by Annibale Carracci.

Pieter Klock, 1665-1754. A famous Amsterdam watchmaker was also a paintings dealer. His name is found on Dutch automaton seascape clocks (scheepjes mechaniek). He also made a table clock with a second hand. He must have been well respected by his peers, as in 1716, he was asked by the City fathers to compile a list of the best watchmakers in Amsterdam.

André Jean, (1646-1717). A goldsmith and painter on enamel who specialized in the decoration of watch cases. He served his apprenticeship in 1661 with Pierre Huaud I, François Legare and Pierre Royaume, associated goldsmiths and became Master in 1675. He himself had several apprentices, among them François Diodati in 1680 and François Lombard from 1687 to 1692. In 1704 André requested permission to open a school for drawing with his son David. There is a watch signed ‘Jean André pinxit 1687’ in the Louvre. 

Gabriel Perelle was born in 1604 in Vernon, Eure and died in 1677 in Paris. He was a French draftsman and printmaker of topographic views and landscapes. Perelle specialized in classical landscapes. He founded an etching workshop, and his sons Nicolas and Adam assisted him. Perelle produced several hundred engravings both from his own drawings and from those of other artists. These engravings in the etching and intaglio (a technique in which the image is incised into a surface and the incised line or sunken area holds the ink) mainly depict landscapes of the Paris region, including views of castles, where he introduced variety by adding ruins and various accessories.
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Camaïeu is a technique that employs two or three tints of a single colour, other than grey, to create a monochromatic image without regard to local or realistic colour.
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Reference 020000