Lot 283

Thomas Mudge & William Dutton London, Movement No. 838, 52 mm, 133 g, circa 1770
A fine pair-cased pocket watch with centre seconds and an early cylinder escapement, made by one of the most famous English makers
Case: outer case - silver. Inner case - silver, case maker's punch mark "PM" (Peter Mounier). Dial: enamel. Movm.: full plate movement, chain/fusee, balance stop device, three-arm brass balance.
Thomas Mudge (1715-1794) apprenticed with George Graham in London and was admitted to the Freedom of the Clockmakers' Company in 1738. After Graham's death in 1751 he took over his business in Fleet Street. From 1755 to 1790 Mudge was in partnership with William Dutton, another of Graham's apprentices. After 1771 Mudge almost exclusively concerned himself with the design of marine chronometers; he built a watch for the King of Spain which had hour and minute repetition and displayed the equation of time. Mudge was the first to use an intermediate pinion in pocket watches and developed the detached lever escapement in 1760. The "Queen Charlotte watch" commissioned by King George III was the first pocket watch with this kind of escapement; it remains part of the Royal Collection to this very day.

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