English gilt-metal key wind pair-cased pocket watch Circa 1790

Gilt metal verge watch with repoussé decoration
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An English gilt metal key wind pair-cased pocket watch with repoussé decoration, circa 1790. Gilt full plate fusee verge movement, a pierced and engraved balance bridge, silver regulation disc.
White enamel dial, black Roman hours, black outer minute track with Arabic five-minute numerals and gilt hands.
Polished inner case, repoussé outer depicting Vulcan surprising Mars and Venus.
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Diameter: 50 mm
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Signed: Harper & Son Salop (Shropshire)
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Depicted in the repoussé scene is a story taken from Homer’s Odyssey. Demodocus, the blind storyteller at the court of King Alcinous, tells the story of how Venus, the Roman goddess of love, was married to Vulcan, the Roman god of fire and the forge, but was in love with Mars, the Roman god of war. Vulcan made a cobweb of fine chains which he strews across Venus and his bed. Mars and Venus got caught in the chains and Vulcan then invited the other gods to laugh at them.
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The Odyssey is, together with The Iliad, one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest extant works of literature still widely read by modern audiences. As with the Iliad, the poem is divided into 24 books. It follows the Greek hero Odysseus, king of Ithaca, and his journey home after the Trojan war.
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Homer was a Greek poet and singer who lived from about 800 BC. until approx. 750 BC. He produced epic poems, in which he incorporated a large number of surviving heroic sagas, stories of the gods and mythical tales from his culture. Two epic poems, the Iliad and the Odyssey, the oldest known and surviving literary works of Greek literature, are attributed to him. However, there has been great uncertainty about this for a long time. It is even disputed that both works were produced by a single author.