LATIN CROSS SHAPED PECTORAL CLOCK. SILVER.17TH CENTURY.

Pectoral clock in the shape of a cross. Silver 17th century.
Presents restorations.
Portable cross-shaped clock with an openwork exterior showing figurative Christian scenes and the movement inside, a gold band dial with Roman numerals for the hours, a single hand and an engraved decoration around it, also with a religious theme; On the back, you can see the back of the movement, with a delicate decoration also openwork and based on plant motifs reminiscent of classicism, and a band on the case of the piece with simplified plant elements.
Outside, we find on one side a crucified Christ, flanked by the Virgin Mary and Saint John, and the figures surrounded by a delicate composition based on vegetal scrolls, with an angel's head at the foot of the piece. The other side shows the Resurrection of Jesus, with Christ emerging from the empty tomb and the soldiers on the sides, again with scrolls and on another angel's head. On the edges there are vegetal and floral elements, accompanied by figures located inside plates. Inside, and flanking the clock face, we are presented with Original Sin below and the Expulsion from Paradise, with Adam on one arm of the cross that forms the clock, Eve on the other and the angel on top, brandishing the flaming sword (thus, in part, following the biblical text).
Several antique portable type clocks are known that have been given a shape that is not the usual one for these objects. Thus, although the best known is the one in the shape of a skull from the Metropolitan Museum (movement from around 1650 by Isaac Penard, box from around 1810-1820), and taking into account that they were not at all the usual type, several are preserved. examples in the shape of a Latin cross. Let us remember, for example, some of those preserved in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford: one attributed to Cornelius Stimmer (active around 1660) presents Christ Crucified in front, flanked by the four Evangelists; another by Barthélemy Cheuillard (active 1636-1677) dated around 1650 has an openwork metal case and engraved decoration on the inside; Other examples, such as one dated around 1660 or another by Didier Lalemand (active 1675-1686) dated around 1660 or 1630, follow what is most common in these extraordinary examples, which is to present the outer box made of rock crystal. This is also what happens with the clock by Charles Bobinet probably painted by Werner Hassel and dated to the mid-17th century that is kept in the Metropolitan Museum, and with that of the British Museum in London by Jean Rouseeau the Younger which is dated between 1640 and 1650 and was made in Switzerland.
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· Size: 7x5,5x2,5 cms