English verge pocket watch with repoussé decoration Circa 1726

Gold pair cased pocket watch by James Hagger
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An English fine, rare pair-cased verge pocket watch, Penelope and the Suitors, circa 1726.
Two cases: an 18-carat gold outer case with repoussé decoration depicting Penelope and the Suitors, chased volute and foliage border and large lateral hinge; and an 18-carat gold polished inner case. The dial is enamel with Roman radial hours and pierced gold hands. And the signed fire gilt full plate movement is keywind, with florally engraved and pierced silver ornaments, chain/fusee, squared baluster movement pillars, three-arm brass balance and a pierced and engraved silver balance cock with a grotesque face.
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Diameter: 49 mm
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Weight: 108 g
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Signed: James Hagger, Edinburgh
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James Hagger, English watchmaker
James Hagger was trained as a clockmaker from 1694 by John Barnett; when he was acquitted with the Clockmakers Company is not known. Hagger worked as a watchmaker in London from around 1700 to 1735. He was based in Leadenhall Street and Grove Hall Lane. He tried to train Elisha Mason to be a watchmaker, and his apprentice left his service for several months. James Cox probably bought some movements from the estate of James Haggar and used some in the clocks, including the one shown in the briefcase and an almost identical clock which was published on October 31, 2012, and was auctioned at Christie’s.
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Penelope
Penelope is the wife of the main character, the king of Ithaca, Odysseus and the daughter of Icarius and his wife, Periboea. She only has one son by Odysseus, Telemachus, who was born just before Odysseus was called to fight in the Trojan War. She waits twenty years for the final return of her husband, during which she has a hard time snubbing marriage proposals from odious suitors. On Odysseus’s return, disguised as an old beggar, he finds that Penelope has remained faithful. She has devised tricks to delay her suitors, one of which is to pretend to be weaving a burial shroud for Odysseus’s elderly father, Laertes and claiming that she will choose a suitor when she has finished. Every night for three years, she undoes part of the shroud until Melantho, one of twelve unfaithful serving women, discovers her chicanery and reveals it to the suitors.