Daniel Gom, Lyon

A VERY RARE SILVER VERGE WATCH IN THE FORM OF A SEA URCHIN CIRCA 1640

• Movement: gilded full plate, verge escapement, flat steel two-arm balance, screwed-on balance cock decoratively pierced and engraved with a bird's head, its scrolling neck merging with flowers and foliage, long foot, blued steel wheel and click set-up with similar gilt cock, vase shaped pillars, fusee and gut line, signed Daniel Gom, Lyon
• Dial: silver, centred with a townscape beside a river, a bridge in the background and figures ascending a ladder in the foreground, Roman numerals with half hour divisions between, gilded outer border engraved with scrolling flowers and foliage and two reclining female figures to the upper left and right sides
• Case: silver, cast in the form of a sea urchin, the front and back covers each centred with a gilded boss, short terminal and plain ring pendant
diameter 37.5mm, length including pendant and terminal 48.5mm

Provenance:
Daniel Gom was born in 1594 and is believed to have been of either Swiss or Polish origin. He moved to Lyon where he was married in 1629 and was later appointed clockmaker to the city. Gom constructed a four dial clock for the city of Autun and, in Lyon, restored the city's cathedral clock which had previously been destroyed. In later life he appears to have succumbed to drink and Gom was dismissed in 1665. See Tardy, Dictionnaire des Horlogers Français, vol. 1, 1971, p.264.

For another watch by Daniel Gom, also in the form of a sea urchin, see: Sotheby's Geneva, 11 May 2008, lot 80.