Scottish rare gold pair cased verge pocket watch Circa 1750

Gold pocket watch “Penelope and the Suitors” by James Cowan
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A fine, rare Scottish pair cased verge pocket watch “Penelope and the Suitors”, circa 1750.
This watch has two cases: an 18 carat gold outer case with “repoussé” decoration depicting Penelope and the Suitors, chased volute and foliage border and a large lateral hinge; an 18 carat gold polished inner case with case maker punch mark “IL”. The dial is enamel with radial Roman hours and blued steel “Poker & Beetle” hands. And the firegilt signed full plate movement is keywind with applied florally engraved ornaments, a chain/fusee, squared baluster movement pillars, a three arm steel balance, set diamond endstone on balance and a pierced and engraved balance cock with grotesque face.
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Diameter: 48 mm
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Weight: 121 g
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Signed: James Cowan, Edinburgh
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Penelope
Penelope is the wife of the main character, the king of Ithaca, Odysseus and 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 inthe 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.