19,550 CHF
George Prior, London, No. 6269, circa 1785.Very fine 18 ct. multicoloured gold, pair-cased quarter repeating watch on a bell and à toc, with matching chatelaine, made for the Islamic market. Notes George PriorSon of John Prior of Nessfield, also a clock-maker, was a leading London maker of watches for the Turkish and Islamic markets, in association with Edward Prior, who was perhaps his brother. One two occasions he received an award from the Society of Arts for his productions.James Cox (d. 1791)By training as a metal-plate worker, James Cox was established in his own business by 1749, at the latest, and described himself as goldsmith on a trade-card datable to 1751. The shop at the Golden Urn, Raquet Court, Fleet Street, where he dealt in jewellery, gold and silver objects and precious stones, was to remain the mainstay of Cox's business throughout his career, however much he later diversified. From 1756-59, Cox was in partnership with Edward Grace. Exactly when he began to organise thconstruction of luxurious, complicated musical and automaton clocks and watches, studded with precious stones and fine woods, intended for export to the Ottoman, Indian and Chinese empires, is unknown but, since the first trace of such activity is a 'notice of two curious Clocks…' in the Gentleman's Magazine, for December 1766, it must have been no later than 1765 or early 1766, probably at the same time as he employed the then unknown, but nonetheless remarkable, Flemish mechanician
Auctioneer:
Antiquorum
Date:
2001-03-31
