J. CUSIN, NEVERS, SILVER PRE-BALANCE SPRING CRUCIFIX-FORM PENDANT WATCH WITH CONCEALED DIAL

This exceedingly rare and important pendant watch is a well preserved example of a 17th century crucifix form-watch. Very seldom seen at auction, crucifix watches are represented in several of the world’s great museum collections.

In keeping with the crucifix-form case, the outside covers are engraved with a foliate and geometrical pattern centred by rosettes, the insides with a bleeding heart representing Jesus Christ’s suffering for the sins of mankind, and IHS, the abbreviation of the name of Jesus, the silver dial plate engraved with a village church, a mask to the top, Christ and the Instruments of the Passion to the bottom and wild strawberries to the sides.

From the style of the set-up and the balance cock secured by a screw rather than being pinned, the present watch can be dated to around the middle to third quarter of the seventeenth century but naturally before the invention of the balance spring in the 1670s.

The Cusins were a family of French watchmakers whose ancestor, Charles, had emigrated from Autun, France, to Geneva, in the second half of the 16th century. Based on the approximate date of manufacture of the present watch it can be attributed to one his descendants, either Jean (1585-1686) or Jean II (1609-1674).

Examples of crucifix watches are illustrated in: Peter Friess, Patek Philippe Museum, The Emergence of the Portable Watch, Vol. III, pp. 67-69.