P Cuper

P Cuper, Blois, circa 1600. Very fine and rare silver and gilt metal, two-train single-hand hour-striking clock watch. Oval, two-body, the back with silver inset finely engraved with two naked warriors wearing plumed helmets and carrying swords and shields, below them two dogs, centred by a oval reserve, gilt brass band pierced and engraved with floral and foliate pattern, hinged glazed front cover, tulip pendant, loose ring. Oval, 35.6 x 41.4 mm, gilt brass full plate, early Egyptian pillars, fusee and gut-line, short four-wheel train with five-leaf pinions, verge escapement, two-arm iron circular foliot, gilded elongated pinned cock pierced and engraved with a child and an hour-glass within foliage, wheel and click set-up with gilded decorated bridge. Striking from a fixed barrel and five-wheel train on an oval bell fixed inside the case, blued-steel count wheel set on the back plate covered by the pierced and egraved cock.Signed on the back plate.Dim. 73 x 48 mm. Published in the Sandberg book, pages 42-43. Notes Paul Cuper'Orologeur du Roy', and his brother Pierre, were sons of Barthélemy Cuper, an emigrant from Germany, probably of noble birth, who settled in Blois about 1530. He introduced watchmaking to the town, which became a famous watchmaking centre. The two brothers went to Nuremberg to study watchmaking. Paul, the eldest, was born in about 1560 and died before 1613.Literature: L. de la Saussaye, 'Histoire de la Ville de Blois', Blois et Paris, 1846.Abbé