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Ferdinando Garrett (died c.1632)
Gilt-brass and silver cased verge watch with alarm

Movement: Ferdin: Garret (within the foliate border around the back plate)., 1610 - 1615

case; silver; engraved, gilt-brass; pierced and engraved dial; gilt-brass; pierced and engraved, silver, steel, blued-steel movement; gilt-brass; pierced and engraved, blued-steel, steel

case 48.2 mm diameter case 25.75 mm thickness movement 36.7 mm diameter movement 10.2 mm pillar height

Case: Gilt-brass and silver case with integral back and hinged glazed lid. The silver back, enclosed in a gilt-brass rim, is engraved with a depiction of The Presentation in the Temple. The gilt- brass band is pierced and engraved with foliate scrolls. Cast gilt-brass pendant with loose ring, gilt-brass baluster finial. The silver lid with a glazed front (glass missing) is not original and replaces a lid which almost certainly consisted of a rim enclosing an engraved silver panel to match the back. The very thin bell in the back of the case is also a replacement. Dial: Gilt-brass dial-plate with foliate scroll decoration with birds and fruit around an applied silver chapter-ring with touch-pins around the outside, hours I-XII and star-shaped half-hour marks. There is no quarters circle. The central area is occupied by a gilt-brass alarm-setting disc numbered 1-11 and with a steel pointer at 12 to show the time. The central area of the disc is pierced and engraved with foliate scrolls. The central blued-steel alarm-setting hand is not original. Movement: Circular gilt-brass plates with four baluster pillars. An engraved border of foliate scrolls around the edge of the back plate. Mainspring barrel with ratchet and click set-up, the blued-steel click not original; fusee with gut line and standard stop-work; three wheel going train; verge escapement, the balance not original; the balance cock, pinned to a stud on the back plate, was engraved with a human figure which has since been almost completely removed by filing. Alarm train powered by a fixed gilt-brass barrel, pierced and engraved on the visible side and with geared stop-work on the back plate. The alarm train is unusual in that it consists of a great wheel which drives a composite second and contrate wheel mounted on a common arbor, the gilt-brass second wheel and the steel contrate wheel are brazed together. Steel crown wheel and verge operated hammer. Movement signed: Ferdin: Garret (within the foliate border around the back plate). Ferdinando Garrett, a Freeman in the Grocers' Company in 1618, died c. 1632.

Mrs Bryan Harland
Sotheby's, 1931

Thompson (2007)

Bequeathed by J. Francis Mallett, 1947.

WA1947.191.32

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