Clocktime Graham Gold Cylinder Watch 1733, 01 Outer Case

George Graham - Chester Beatty Graham quarter-repeating cylinder watch in gold pair-cased depicting Britannia and Chronos, No. 696.
Join Dr John C Taylor OBE from the Clocktime digital museum as he discusses the outer case of the Graham Gold Cylinder Watch, hallmarked 1733.
Discover more about early and antique clocks and watches...
clocktime.co.u...
The wonderful case made by Parbury here, depicting the scene of longitude solved with Chronos coming out of the Atlantic, lifted out with help from Britannia, sat on her chariot. And then in the background you've got the ship crossing the Atlantic from the Americas to Europe. And the cliff and the trees in the background with the Britannia sat on some native Indian weapons. The detail of Britannia is wonderful isn't it? Her gown, the swirls of her dress, the ornaments, the flowers on her dress. In the Atlantic, you can see South America, North America in the engraving. And then Chronos, then up to the cliffs and the woods surrounding the North Atlantic. Then rolling the case round again to show the wonderful set of engraving here. The first one here has a waywiser, a tripod with a plain table, a compass and a sighting rule for surveying. Then coming round to navigation, with a sighting telescope, a chart roll, azimuth compass, front staff and back staff. Then round to astronomy represented by a ruler, a telescopic quadrant, a Gunter quadrant and a protractor. And then time, represented by a clock, a sunglass, a sun dial and a watch. And think all of this was made by hand, by tapping from the back into pitch the gold case to get these wonderful details and then the engraving done on top of that. Here you've got the name of the gold chaser Parbury. His name proudly displayed. Parbury was the foremost exponent of this art of wonderful, how you could form a thin gold case into a work of art like this. Isn't it beautiful?