Unique Dutch gold enamel watch of museum quality Circa 1645

Gold enamel verge watch by Lambertus Vrythoff
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A Dutch gold one-handed verge pocket watch with enamel paintings, so-called The Rape of Europa and Mercury and the Three Graces, circa 1645.
Typically decorated Dutch verge movement around 1750, signed plate, extensively decorated, beautifully pillars, gilded brass and steel, partly blued. The gold enamel dial, with Roman radial hours and a steel hand, is decorated with the arms of Louis Hesselin (1602–1662), King Louis XIV’s organizer of entertainments (surintendant des plaisirs du Roy).
The exterior of this gold enamel watchcase depicts the Rape of Europa and Mercury and the Three Graces, both miniature versions of paintings by Simon Vouet (1590–1649). The former so closely resembles the painting in colour and detail that it likely derives from the painting itself rather than the engraving of it by Michael Dorigny (1617–1665), which is, in any case, a reverse image of both the painting and the watch case. The case inside contains Hesselin’s portrait after an engraving by Robert Nanteuil (1623–1678), the favoured portraitist of many of the most important royal court members.
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Diameter: 54 mm
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Signed: Lamb’t. Vrythoff, Hagae 241
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The watch is mentioned in the inventory of Hesselin’s estate. It was modernized in the eighteenth century with an eight-day movement by a prominent Dutch watch- and clockmaker working in The Hague about 1750, who seems to have had patrons with a special liking for enamelled gold cases.
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Enamelled watchcases of this period are rarely signed. As the best enamelers were so adept at reproducing the style of their models, an individual hand is difficult, if not impossible, to identify. Nevertheless, these exquisite miniatures have their closest parallels in the work of Henri Toutin (1614–ca. 1683) of Châteaudun and, after 1636, of Paris.