Lot 79

John Ellicot / George Michael Moser

Die Großmut des Scipio

An art-historically important, rare London pair-cased pocket watch with Stodgens type quarter repeater, favoured by Daniel Quare and other good watch makers

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The outer repoussé case has been created in a manner typical for George Michael Moser. The back shows "The continence of Scipio", which George Michael Moser drafted for the lid of a box and which is illustrated and described in "The Art Of The Gold Chaser" by Richard Edgecumbe, Oxford 2000, Fig. 88c. The scene is framed by baroque-style volute and rocaille work. To emphasise the sound of the quarter repeater, the edge is open-worked. The inner case is also lavishly decorated with a central rocaille engraved on the back, from which a heron rises. The pendant is decorated with the view of a town and a grotesque mask desorates the opener. The edge is ornamented with an openwork stylised band of flowers and volutes.

John Ellicott (1706-1791) was one of the most eminent English watch- and clock-makers, established himself in business about 1728 and became a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1738. Ellicot was the inventor of a compensation pendulum and paid great attention to the use of the cylinder escapement only a few years after its improvement by Graham. In some of his later pieces the cylinders were made of ruby.
George Michael Moser (1706-1783) was born in Schaffhausen on January 17, 1706. He studied chasing and gilding under his father Michael, a coppersmith. He moved to London in 1726 and worked for John Valentine Haidt, goldsmith and watch chaser. By 1737 he was working on his own account at Craven Buildings off Drury Lane. In addition to chasing he also produced fine enamel cases of which only about twenty are known to survive. He designed the great seal of George III and painted enamel portraits of the royal children for Queen Charlotte. In the 1740's Moser became a leading figure at the St Martins Lane Academy and later, in 1769 he became the first Keeper of the Royal Academy. His repoussé watch case work is among the finest to be found. Moser continued to work at least until the late 1770's, and was active for the Royal Academy until the end of his life. On January 30, 1783, the "Gentleman's Magazine" reported that Moser "was followed to his grave in grand funeral pomp by all the capital artists, Sir Joshua Reynolds at their head as chief mourner, Sir William Chambers, etc. Ten mourning coaches, besides two gentlemen's coaches, were in the procession".
In The Art of the Gold Chaser in Eighteenth-Century London, Richard Edgcumbe devotes over 40 pages of text to Moser's work in addition to the many illustrations included.