Rare English silver egg-shape Puritan pocket watch Circa 1640

Silver oval verge watch by Edward East
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A rare English silver egg-shaped Puritan verge pocket watch, circa 1640.
Gilded brass and steel, partly blued full plate movement, pinned on pierced and florally engraved balance cock, plain flat steel balance, wheel and click set-up, gut line fusee, signed on the back plate: Eduardus East / Londini. Plain, silver dial with Roman radial hours, outer minutes and half-hour track, and single steel hand. Plain outer and inner silver egg-shaped cases.
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Dimensions: 44 x 38 mm
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Signed: Eduardus East, Londini
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The plain, almost egg-shaped watch known as a Puritan watch is commonly thought to have been developed in England in reaction to the elaborately decorated watch cases of the earlier seventeenth century. However, watches of the same variety are known to have been made in the Dutch cities of Haarlem and The Hague from about 1625. This elegant example has a worm-and-wheel set-up for the mainspring, a pinned-on cock with a beautifully executed openwork floral design, elegant pillars of a type known as Egyptian, and a gut fusee. It has a duration of sixteen hours. It can run for up to sixteen hours.
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Edward East, British watchmaker
Edward East, a goldsmith by profession, played a crucial role in establishing the London Clockmakers’ Company in 1631. He was recognized for his expertise in crafting both clocks and watches during the Commonwealth era. Despite being a royalist, he was appointed as the clockmaker to King Charles II upon his restoration in 1660.