English verge pocket watch with repoussé decoration Circa 1780

Gold pair cased pocket watch by William Chase
–
A very fine, pair-cased English verge pocket watch with repoussé decoration Orpheus and Eurydice, circa 1780.
Two cases: outer case – gold, repoussé in very high relief depicting Orpheus with the harp and Eurydice; decorated with engraved and chased volutes and scrollwork, large lateral hinge; inner case – gold, polished. Enamel dial with radial Roman hours and Louis XVI hands. Full plate movement, keywind, fire gilt, signed, screwed on floral decorations, chain/fusee, square baluster pillars, three-arm steel balance, fine florally engraved, and pierced balance bridge.
–
Diameter: 43 mm
–
Weight: 65 g
–
Signed: William Chase, London
–
A similar watch with “repoussé” decoration by George Michael Moser is illustrated in “The Art of the Gold Chaser in Eighteenth-Century London” by Richard Edgcumbe, Oxford 2000, fig 113.
–
Orpheus and Eurydice
Eurydice was set upon by a satyr. In her efforts to escape the satyr, Eurydice fell into a nest of vipers and suffered a fatal bite on her heel. Her body was discovered by Orpheus who, overcome with grief, played such sad and mournful songs that all the nymphs and gods wept. On their advice, Orpheus travelled to the underworld and by his music softened the hearts of Hades and Persephone, who agreed to allow Eurydice to return with him to earth on one condition: he should walk in front of her and not look back until they both had reached the upper world. He set off with Eurydice following, and, in his anxiety, as soon as he reached the upper world, he turned to look at her, forgetting that both needed to be in the upper world, and she vanished for the second time, but now forever.