Watch Chatelaines In The Munson-Williams-Proctor

Magazine Antiques, April, 2001 by Janet Zapata

In the early 1770s another type of chatelaine, known as the macaroni chatelaine, came into fashion with the middle and upper classes. [7] Worn primarily by women, this was simply a chain looped through the belt or waistband with a watch on one end and various ornamental objects on the other. When worn by men, the watch was tucked into the fob pocket. The Munson-Williams-Proctor's collection does not have an example of a macaroni chatelaine, but it does have watches that would have originally hung from one. The enameled example shown in Plate V was once attached by a swivel to one end of a chain, with either a key or a seal attached to the other end. [8]

Watches decorated with memorial hair-work were also suspended from macaroni chatelaines. Edward Young's poem Night Thoughts on Life, Death, and Immortality (1742-1745) rekindled an interest in wearing memorials to the dead--a practice that had been fashionable in England during the previous century. Memorial jewelry featured a medallion enclosing a lock or plait of hair from a loved one or miniatures of weeping willows, a tomb, urns, and mourners in tears. The watch shown in Plate III typifies such memorial jewelry, combining a plait of woven hair surrounded by a wreath of silver forget-me-nots set with rose-cut diamonds, and a circle of half pearls around the watchcase. [9]

At the beginning of the nineteenth century a revival of interest in the Renaissance inspired jewelers to make copies in the antique style or embellish existing pieces. A good example is the typical late eighteenth-century verge watch attached to a nineteenth-century chatelaine shown in Plates Via and VIb. The chatelaine is decorated with portraits of Louis XVI (r. 1774-1792), Marie Antoinette (1755-1793), his queen, and their children. It has been suggested that such jewelry was made for royalists celebrating the restoration of the French monarchy in 1815. [10] On this chatelaine, pearls dominate the decoration of the openwork black-and-white enameled gold chains. The plaque in the center bears the monogram "MA" for Marie Antoinette, and on both sides above the portraits a fleur-de-lis is set against a shield-shaped blue ground. The enamel vignette of a young Marie Antoinette and two children on the watchcase was added later. On the reverse (Pl. VIb) eight enameled putti play various musical instruments. As messengers of profane love they signify the bond between the king and queen.

By the last quarter of the nineteenth century Viennese watchmakers were replicating earlier watch forms as well as continuing the revival of Renaissance enameling techniques. The decoration of the watch chatelaine shown in Plate VII illustrates this revival mode. The polychrome enameling is executed in a palette often used for Renaissance jewelry. The two halves of the round rock crystal watchcase are decorated on the enameled metal borders with white flowers and buildings.

A long with enameling, decorating watches with niello was a common practice in the nineteenth century. Niello is a black metallic substance made of silver, copper, and lead sulphides combined in prescribed amounts and inlaid into silver or gold in a manner similar to champleve enameling. Cells in the desired patterns are cut into the metal and filled with the molten alloy. The object is then heated at a low temperature causing the niello to fuse, become viscous, and finally cement itself permanently to the metal. [11]