Triple-cased watch

Firm of Clarke & Dunster

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This highly elaborate triple-case gold watch is a supreme example of the Anglo-Dutch firm Clarke and Dunster, a partnership between Christopher Clarke and Roger Dunster, active in Amsterdam and London from 1703 to about 1725-1730. This watches most outstanding feature is a finely chased gold bas-relief showing Apollo with his lyre enthroned in a temple. Three female figures appear to introduce him to a man in an 18th century robe, possibly a dignitary for whom this watch was made. Four individual portraits surrounding the main scene represent the four seasons. The iconography of Apollo, the Sun God, and the Four Seasons was particularly fashionable between 1660s and 1750s.

European Sculpture and Decorative Arts

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The fifty thousand objects in the Museum's comprehensive and historically important collection of European sculpture and decorative arts reflect the development of a number of art forms in Western European countries from the early fifteenth through the early twentieth century. The holdings include sculpture in many sizes and media, woodwork and furniture, ceramics and glass, metalwork and jewelry, horological and mathematical instruments, and tapestries and textiles. Ceramics made in Asia for export to European markets and sculpture and decorative arts produced in Latin America during this period are also included among these works.

Metropolitan Museum of Art