The 18th century

The paintings and engravings of the 18th century, so accurately reproducing interiors and furnishings, portrayed few watches as they had since ceased to be a rarity. Conversely, they show us a number of pendulums, reproduced down to their smallest external details. Such is the case of the fine images produced by Moreau le Jeune or by Freudenberger (often reproduced) in which the highly decorative nature of pendulums, salon or wall clocks were sensitively depicted. A study of the engraving alone tells us the whole story of these objects.

Paintings however kept up with the times, and a look at some of the interiors by Boucher or De Troy is enough to realise just how much a handsome pendulum clock could add to the harmony of a salon where elegant society would converse and be more familiar than most with 'the pleasures of life'.

The pendulum clock, less majestic than in the previous century, took on more pleasing shapes during the Regency Period, and then succumbed to the extravagances of Rococo, the new balance of these curves rising like waves, just as the Louis XV style was growing more subdued, while awaiting the colder but still elegant harmony of the new classical and pastoral Louis XVI style. 

Let us not forget that the great artists of the 18th century were not averse to creating furniture or clocks: “At that time, painters would draw everything. They supplied the designs for chairs, tapestries, piers, over-doors,” Théophile Gautier wrote. “They themselves painted ceilings, wainscoting, screens, partitions, coaches, bellows, harpsichords, snuffboxes and fans. No job was beneath them and they would turn their hand to everything relating to their art.”

Watches, which had since regained their slimness and lightness, were a must-have and became widespread and simplified as a result. Sumptuous timepieces, also very common, were adorned with all kinds of embellishments (engraving, carving, jewellery and enamels). The decorativeness of the Louis XIV watch gave way to a more lustrous grace, to an aesthetic achieved by ingenious concordances, to great finesse.

These watches were only rarely attached to clothing, which tended to conceal them, although elegant ladies would quite often attach them at the waist. But then along came the breloquier to make them a feature.

It was in the first half of the 18th century that breloquiers or chatelaine pins became fashionable. These were complicated and nearly always very sumptuous pieces of jewellery which featured patterns matching those on the watch and gave it an importance hitherto unprecedented in dress. The watch was mostly placed in the fob of the belt while the breloquier hung outside, with cachets, keys, tassels or other trinkets attached at the other end.

Sometimes the watch itself was suspended from the breloquier. As always, its complication would encourage extravagance. At one time it was considered good form to wear two chatelaine pins, as can be seen in some drawings of the period immediately preceding the French Revolution. Observing the celebrated engraving 'Le Bal Paré' by St-Aubin, the Goncourt brothers remarked that 'their watches beat against their skirts'. Every woman was wearing the breloquier.

Alfred Chapuis : De Horologiis In Arte

'Mecanics', drawing  by Jean Jouvenet

'The watchmaker', published in the German book 'The Crafts', J.-P. Voit