Antique and Vintage Pendant Watches

In the late 18th century, as portable time-telling devices became accessible to a wider swath of buyers, European watchmakers increasingly aimed their products at female customers. These accessories combined mechanical watches with fine jewelry detailing, incorporating precious metals and gemstones, typically in the form of either a pendant watch, to be worn on a brooch or necklace, or a bracelet watch—the style that begat the wristwatch. Technical improvements to watch design during the 18th and 19th centuries allowed for ever-smaller watch mechanisms with increasing accuracy and aesthetic appeal. Thomas Prest’s 1820 patent for a keyless winding system also meant that such accessories no longer required frequent attention, increasing their fashion potential. Antique pendant watches ranged from tiny dials hidden in decorative brooches to larger faces featured prominently on neck chains. These designs often mirrored popular jewelry trends, from those shaped like oversized crucifixes to locket-style watches to those hidden behind a finely cut cameo portrait. A few were even produced as part of a matching chatelaine set along with other delicate household tools. Some of the most desirable pendant watches are known as “form watches,” since they take the shapes of objects—including musical instruments, seashells, fruit, and animals—such as the late 18th-century timepiece made by the Swiss company Des Arts & Cie in the shape of a stag beetle. The tiny dial of this pendant watch is hidden beneath the beetle’s hinged wings of enameled gold.