Miniature Rock Crystal Watch This pristine miniature gilt watch with its detailed engravings and finely cut elliptical rock crystal case epitomises luxury.[1] Attached to a chain by its pendant and worn around the neck or waist, it was a watch intended for a royal or aristocratic lady. It was made by Edward East in his workshop in Ram Alley, just off Fleet Street in London, [2] around the time that he began ascending the ranks of the Worshipful Company of Clockmakers, becoming Warden of the Company in 1638. The watch’s tiny gilded movement has four-ribbed baluster pillars rivetted to the top plate, and the bottomplate is pinned on. It is controlled by a verge escapement with plain balance and a going train with three wheels. The setup wheel and associated complex floral click and sinuous blued-steel click-spring are used only once to set up the spring tension. Both are mounted on the watch’s full-gilt bottom plate and form a feature that functions as a visual counterbalance to the signature, Eduardus East Londini, and the associated tiny engraving of a Scottish thistle. The use of depth in the cut to achieve the width of the signature engraving showcases the exceptional skill of the engraver. However, Experts are still unsure as to exactly how the cutting for this watch’s case was achieved during this pre-industrial period. On the gilded dial plate inside the chapter ring, there is a highly detailed engraving measuring just 11 mm in diameter. In its foreground are a miniature stream, rushes and a fence. On the right is a twisted tree, and on the left is a townscape and a church. In the sky, two flying doves are depicted above the church’s steeple. Framing the scene is the silver chapter ring, which is engraved with Roman numerals and quarter-hour markers. Around its edge is a thin, delicately engraved minute ring. Surrounding this is a profusion of engraved flowers and fruit. The time is indicated by a single blued-steel hand. The entire dial plate is framed by a gilt broder engraved with palm leaves. This border is replicated along the edge of the lid of the watch’s case. The finely cut elliptical, scalloped-edged case is made of rock crystal; this translucent quartz that is at the top end of the Mohs scale of mineral hardness, with only topaz, corundum, and diamond being categorised as harder. Topaz and corundum were not commonly available as cutting agents, so it is possible that East’s workmen used diamond powder to create this watch case. Despite being almost 400 years old, this rock crystal case is in perfect condition, without a single scratch. Rock crystal was an exotic and luxurious choice for the case, its use catering to an elite clientele.[3] The coveting of rock crystal can be traced back to the Bronze Age, when objects made from rock crystal first appear in Greece’s richest prehistoric graves at Mycenae. Pliny the Elder discusses its properties in his Natural History, published around 77 AD and one of the largest single works from the Roman Empire to have survived, in which he claims that rock crystal was more valuable than gold in the ancient world. The mineral remained popular for use in luxury objects from the Greek and Roman periods through to the 1600s, when rock crystal objects are documented in the courts of Europe. This watch was probably made in the Bull-East family workshop on Ram Alley. East had married into the Bull clockmaking dynasty[4] and, by 1628, had been promoted to overseer of the Ram Alley workshop, where he seems to have managed manufacturing operations on a large scale. The location of the Bull-East Ram Alley workshop was certainly strategic. Ram Alley was a tiny alley, just seven feet wide, that ran south of Fleet Street, opposite Fetter Lane. During the 16- and 1700s, it was a rough place, ‘inhabited chiefly by crooks, bawds, tobacco-sellers and ale-house keepers’,[5] and is described by Walter George Bell as being ‘of evil association, perhaps the most pestilent court in London’.[6] This is because Ram Alley was a place of sanctuary; any activity that took place there was unregulated, and anyone on the alley could claim immunity and enjoy freedom from arrest. Thus, the Bull family and their new overseer, East, could employ foreign workers and run the family business without interference, steering clear of regulation from the various guilds. Perhaps it was a Huguenot artisan that was responsible for the stunning elliptical, scalloped-edged cutting on this watch’s rock crystal case. Only a handful of East’s rock crystal-cased watches survive. These include East’s rock crystal-cased watch made around 1635 at the Victoria and Albert Museum (Museum number M.360-1927); and his octagonal silver and rock crystal-cased balance verge watch made around 1637 at the British Museum (Museum number 1874,0718.30). End Notes [1] Cuss 2008, 55, pl. 19. [2] Ram Alley can be seen on the Ogilby and Morgan maps, both dated to 1676, as well as the Rocque map dated 1746. To access these maps and for 17th century literary references to Ram Alley, see https://mapoflondon.uvic.ca/RAMA1.htm [3] Koeppe 2019, 56 and 98. [4] East's wife, Anne Bull, was the daughter of one of the leading London watchmakers, Edmund Bull (b. 1585, d. 1622). Edmund was a prosperous clockmaker and businessman, running clockmaking workshops within the City of London as well as outside its jurisdiction in Ram Alley. The Bull family clockmaking business, which had started in the 1570s, boasts at least nine early clockmakers, including two royal clockmakers. Randolph Bull (b. 1550, d. 1617) was Queen Elizabeth I’s Royal Clockmaker, and his son, Emmanuel Bull (b. 1586, d. 1650) was Prince Henry’s Royal Clockmaker from 1610. [5] Sugden 1925, 426. [6] Bell 1912, 252. References Bell, W. G. 1912. Fleet Street in Seven Centuries: Being a history of the growth of London beyond the walls into the Western Liberty, and of Fleet Street to our time. London: Sir Isaac Pitman and Sons. Cuss, T. C. 2008. The English Watch 1585 – 1970. Woodbridge: Antique Collectors Club. Koeppe, W. 2019. Making Marvels: Science and splendour at the courts of Europe. New York, NY: The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Pliny the Elder. c77 AD. Natural History L, Book 37, Chapter 23. Sugden, E. 1925. A Topographical Dictionary to the Works of Shakespeare and His Fellow Dramatists. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
