{"meta":{"version":"2.1","_links":{"self":{"href":"https://api.vam.ac.uk/v2/object/O153454"},"collection_page":{"href":"https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O153454/"}},"images":{"_primary_thumbnail":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2006AR0679/full/!100,100/0/default.jpg","_iiif_image":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2006AR0679/","_alt_iiif_image":[],"imageResolution":"high","_images_meta":[{"assetRef":"2006AR0679","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2006BH4319","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2006BH4320","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false}]},"see_also":{"_iiif_pres":"https://iiif.vam.ac.uk/collections/O153454/manifest.json","_alt_iiif_pres":[]}},"record":{"systemNumber":"O153454","accessionNumber":"M.11:1,2-2017","objectType":"Chatelaine","titles":[],"summaryDescription":"This chatelaine by Johann Christian Neuber (1736-1808), court jeweller at Dresden, has been praised by Alexis Kugel, an authority on Neuber, as the finest he ever made. Neuber specialised in the mounting of hardstones, including many varieties which were mined in Saxony.\n\nThe chatelaine is two-sided, designed to be looped around a lady’s girdle.  Every aspect conveys the love of the donor for his beloved.  He promises in words of gold, each accompanied by a symbol, to be TENDRE, FIDEL (sic), ARDENT, SINCERE, SECRET and CONSTANT.  The watchcase is decorated with the doves of Venus perched on a quiver of arrows.  Above is the word 'L'AMITIE' (friendship).\n\nThe chatelaine and watch were owned by the Dowager Countess of Ashburnham when they were sold by Christie’s in 1863.  They were in the sale of King Farouk’s collection in Cairo in 1954.  \r\n\r\n","physicalDescription":"The watch of the chatelaine is inlaid  with hardstones  mounted in gold with courting doves sitting on a  garlanded quiver of arrows,  forget-me-nots and fruiting  laurel symbolising the  triumph of love.  Above the doves  is the word 'L'AMITIE' (friendship).  On the chatelaine is  the declaration of  the lover, each word spelt out in gold  letters on a lapis lazuli ground and accompanied by a  symbol inlaid into a circle of carnelian. He is  ‘TENDRE’  (heart), ‘FIDEL’ (sic , dog), ‘ARDENT’ (altar of  love),  ‘SINCERE’ (mirror symbolising truthfulness), ‘SECRET’  (padlock) and  ‘CONSTANT’ (fortress). The lovers are  united for ever,  ‘UNIS POUR TOUJOURS’, their hearts  tied in a lover’s  knot.   Geoffrey Munn (see references)  interprets the pendants as depicting Adam and Eve (the  first lovers), a  caged owl (wisdom enslaved by love) and  a butterfly  (symbol of the soul), 'an allusion to time   flying but love remaining'.\r\n\r\n\tOn the reverse, the chatelaine is decorated with forget- me-nots and laurels together with Cupid's arrows and  the lamp of love.\r\n\r\n\tA short section  of the back rim of the case can be  depressed to allow the back of the case to swing open to  reveal a portrait mounted in a glazed oval compartment  of the Empress Joséphine.  The portrait was presumably  added later to replace an earlier portrait, perhaps of the  donor, which he had intended for contemplation by his  beloved.  The present portrait of Joséphine is after  Daniel Saint.  It is not known when it was inserted.\r\n\r\n\tThe watch has a white enamel dial with Roman hour  numerals and Arabic minute numerals, 5 to 60, and the  name of the maker: 'Lépine / Hger Du Roy'.  The top  plate of the movement is inscribed 'Lépine Horloger du  Roy A . PARIS'.\r\n\r\n\tJoanna Whalley, FGA, has made the following  comments on the hardstones:\r\n\r\n\tJasper varieties: varigated; streaked; yellow; white; pink;  bloodstone.\r\n\tAgates:  silicified wood (the carved hearts and tower);  moss agate; prase. \r\n\tChalcedonies:  carnelian; grey; reverse-painted  colourless chalcedony (butterfly fob).\r\n\tLapis lazuli:  good quality even colour, with pyrite  inclusions; the wings of the butterfly fob contain notable  calcite inclusions,  whereas that behind the lettering has  very little, which enhances the definition of the letters.\r\n\tTurquoise:  some of the turquoise contains straight  layered colour zoning (visible under strong light)  suggestive of odontolite;  others contain small black  granular inclusions and pale whitish cloud-like  inclusions, more typical of turquoise.  It is possible  that  there may be a mixture of like material present.\r\n\tGarnets: dark purplish red, very few black crystalline  inclusions.  Most likely pyrope.\r\n","artistMakerPerson":[{"name":{"text":"Neuber, Johann Christian","id":"A14927"},"association":{"text":"maker","id":"x40240"},"note":"watchcase and chatelaine"},{"name":{"text":"Lépine, Jean-Antoine","id":"AUTH345509"},"association":{"text":"maker","id":"x40240"},"note":"watch movement"}],"artistMakerOrganisations":[],"artistMakerPeople":[],"materials":[{"text":"gold","id":"AAT11021"},{"text":"hardstone","id":"x37572"}],"techniques":[{"text":"Zellenmosaik","id":"THES253934"}],"materialsAndTechniques":"Gold watchcase and chatelaine set with hardstone","categories":[{"text":"Jewellery","id":"THES48930"},{"text":"Metalwork","id":"THES48920"}],"styles":[],"collectionCode":{"text":"MET","id":"THES48599"},"images":["2006AR0679","2006BH4319","2006BH4320"],"imageResolution":"high","galleryLocations":[{"current":{"text":"008","id":"THES407979"},"free":"","case":"","shelf":"","box":""},{"current":{"text":"013","id":"THES412321"},"free":"","case":"","shelf":"","box":""}],"partTypes":[[{"text":"Watch","id":""}],[{"text":"case","id":"THES251008"}]],"contentWarnings":[{"apprise":"","note":""},{"apprise":"","note":""},{"apprise":"","note":""}],"placesOfOrigin":[{"place":{"text":"Dresden (city)","id":"x28810"},"association":{"text":"made","id":"x28654"},"note":"watchcase and chatelaine"}],"productionDates":[{"date":{"text":"1770-85","earliest":"1770-01-01","latest":"1785-12-31"},"association":{"text":"made","id":"x28654"},"note":"watchcase and chatelaine"},{"date":{"text":"ca. 1770","earliest":"1765-01-01","latest":"1774-12-31"},"association":{"text":"made","id":"x28654"},"note":"movement and dial"}],"associatedObjects":[],"creditLine":"Accepted under the Cultural Gifts Scheme by HM Government from Nicholas Snowman and allocated to the Victoria and Albert Museum, 2017","dimensions":[{"dimension":"Height","value":"205","unit":"mm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"watch and chatelaine","note":""},{"dimension":"Width","value":"58","unit":"mm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"watch and chatelaine","note":""},{"dimension":"Depth","value":"23","unit":"mm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"watch and chatelaine","note":""}],"dimensionsNote":"","marksAndInscriptions":[],"objectHistory":"Watch and chatelaine\nSold for £155 from the collection of the Dowager  Countess of Asburnham, Christie's, London 26 March  1863, lot 104:\r\n\r\n'A BEAUTIFUL WATCH, by Lepine, in case of gold, the  back encrusted, with flowers in agate, doves, and a  trophy in agate-cameo in relief, inscribed \"L'Amitié,\" with  chain, two seals, and key attached; the whole encrusted  with agates and other precious materials, and with  emblems in camei, inscribed \"Tendre, Fidel,  Ardent,  Sincère, Secret,  Constant, unis pour toujours.\"  Formerly  the property of Louis XIV.- in shagreen case of the  period'\r\n\r\nThe title page states 'the very choice collection' was  'formed many years ago, chiefly in Italy'.  Lady Charlotte  Percy (1776-1862) was a daughter of the 1st Earl of  Beverley, and the sister of George Percy, 5th Duke of  Northumberland.  She was the second wife of George,  3rd Earl of Ashburnham KG, GCH, FSA (1760-1830) by  whom she had 13 children.  His godparents were King  George III, the Duke of Newcastle and the Dowager  Princess of Wales.  \r\n\r\nOwned by King Farouk of Egypt.  Sold by Sotheby's,  Cairo, 10-17 March 1954, lot 457.  It was bought by  Kenneth Snowman for Wartski, London, and sold  to  Charles Taylor, a schoolmaster from Hastings, who  bequeathed it to Kenneth Snowman. \r\n\r\nThis is one of twelve objects presented from the Kenneth  and Sallie Snowman Collection by their son, Nicholas.   Eleven were given in 2017 under the Cultural Gifts  Scheme administered by HM Government.  The twelfth,  a ring with a cameo of Elizabeth I, was given through the  Art Fund in 2016.\r\n\r\nKenneth Snowman (1919-2002) was described on his  death by Terence Mullaly as ‘one of the last leading  representatives of the London art market’s golden age’.   His father, Emanuel Snowman, married the daughter of  Morris Wartski, a pedlar in North Wales whose talents  made  him the owner of a Rolls-Royce with shops in  Bangor and Mostyn Street, Llandudno, the ‘golden half- mile’ which was said to boast more royal warrants than  anywhere outside London.   In 1927 Emanuel made his  first purchases of works of art sold by the Soviet  Government, the foundation of Wartski’s pre-eminence  as an international dealer in Fabergé.  Kenneth  remembered seeing them laid out on the mantelpiece  and bookshelves of the morning room of their house in  Hampstead.  Aiming at first to be an artist, Kenneth  studied at the Byam Shaw School of Art, and earned a  fee in 1939 through his illustrations, drawn more from  Gray’s Anatomy than from life, for the best-selling  Technique of Sex written by Elliot Philipp under the  pseudonym of Anthony Havil.  He exhibited at the Royal  Academy and the Paris Salon, but a bazaar at which  Sallie Moghi-Levkine (1919-95) presided over the  tombola had introduced him to the love of his life and in  due course the need to find a more reliable income.  He  joined the family firm and, making full use of Sallie’s  Russian, brought to Fabergé scholarship a new energy  and authority.  \r\n\r\nIn an interval at the Royal Opera House on 7 January  1976 he sketched out for Sir Roy Strong a plan for the  Fabergé exhibition he curated at the V&A to celebrate  the Silver Jubilee, a legendary success which had 150, 000 visitors queuing down the Brompton Road, brought  the hot-dog sellers over from the Science Museum, and  inspired exhibitions across Europe and North America.   Wartski became famous for its scholarship, exhibitions  and books.  Kenneth Snowman’s eminence as an  authority on Fabergé carried him into a short story by Ian  Fleming, The Property of a Lady, later incorporated in  the plot of the film Octopussy.  James Bond ‘looked Mr  Snowman straight in the eyes’ and said “Will you give  me a hand?”.\r\n\r\nKenneth Snowman wrote with even greater affection and  no less authority on gold boxes.  Eighteenth-Century  Gold Boxes of Europe, first published in 1966, was  revised in 1990.  One of the great influences on  Fabergé’s work was Johann Christian Neuber (1736- 1808), court goldsmith at Dresden, and two examples of  his work are included in Nicholas Snowman’s gift.  ","historicalContext":"","briefDescription":"Gold watch and chatelaine mounted with hardstones, Johann Christian Neuber, Dresden; the movement by Lépine, Paris; 1770-85. Later case by Wartski.","bibliographicReferences":[{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Munn, Geoffrey. The Triumph of Love: Jewelry  1530-1930. London, 1993.  pp. 54-5."},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Kugel, Alexis (ed.). Gold, Jasper and Carnelian:  Johann Christian Neuber at the Saxon Court.  London, 2012. p. 213, and p. 372, no. 205."}],"production":"","productionType":{"text":"","id":""},"contentDescription":"","contentPlaces":[],"associatedPlaces":[],"contentPerson":[],"associatedPerson":[],"contentOrganisations":[],"associatedOrganisations":[],"contentPeople":[],"associatedPeople":[],"contentEvents":[],"associatedEvents":[],"contentOthers":[],"contentConcepts":[],"contentLiteraryRefs":[],"galleryLabels":[],"partNumbers":["M.11:1-2017","M.11:2-2017"],"accessionNumberNum":"11","accessionNumberPrefix":"M","accessionYear":2017,"otherNumbers":[{"type":{"text":"Previous loan number","id":"THES50326"},"number":"LOAN:SNOWMAN.20-1997"}],"copyNumber":"","aspects":["WHOLE","watch and chatelaine","Case"],"assets":["2019LU5419"],"recordModificationDate":"2026-05-12","recordCreationDate":"2008-04-24","availableToBook":false}}