(Q34032)

Decorated on the front with a profusion of flowers and foliage on an iron-red ground reserved with a grass- edged cartouche painted in brown monochrome with Cupid scantily-draped, seated on clouds with a small globe between his feet, holding a baton in his right hand, and a label inscribed VH in his left hand, the upper section painted with a central blue shell within elaborate rocaillerie surmounted by a molded scrollwork finial, and pierced below with a circular aperture fitted with an interior support for a pocket watch accessible from the larger opening on the reverse above blue foliate sprigs and dots, the sides with blue floral sprays and a chain border on the flaring apron between the four scroll feet. The stand is now accompanied by a nearly contemporary French pocket watch in a silver case (Ferney-Voltaire, French Jura, circa 1795, marked with initials HM in a lozenge, numbered 70458) (Engels)

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The aperture of this watch stand was intended to hold a pocket watch. Since clocks were reasonably expensive and not common accoutrements for every room of a house at this time, watch stands served the purpose of transforming a portable pocket watch into a temporary clock, as the watch could be transferred from pocket to watch stand and from room to room, in this instance creating from a simple timepiece an elaborate and decorative clock. So useful was this form, that watch stands sometimes were an element of rococo inkstands, as discussed in the following entry. (Engels)

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