Lot 439

Jacques Gloria à Rouen, 54 mm, 120 g, circa 1665
A rare one-handed verge pocket watch "Oignon" without fusee
Case: brass, firegilt, coated with leather. Dial: gilt, enamel cartouches with radial Roman numerals, chased floral decor, blued steel hand. Movm.: full plate movement, gilt, signed, going barrel, three-arm steel balance, florally engraved, pierced balance cock.
Jacques Gloria was born around 1640 in Dieppe, where he also trained as a watchmaker; later he worked in Rouen. Gloria built watches with a mainspring mechanism similar to a Maltese Cross position which he had invented himself, but without fusee. These watches also had a power reserve. Around 1670 Jacques Gloria married Madeleine Barry and the couple had a son Jacques Gloria the younger and a daughter. In 1694 Dieppe was bombarded during the Nine Year War, which is probably when Jacques moved to Rouen, where he became a master in 1696; in 1701 he was appointed Garde (Juré). Gloria lived in the Rue des Merciers and he died around 1705.
The design of his watches prevailed in Rouen, Dieppe, Caen and Abbeville for another 15 to 20 years.
Jacques Gloria was of the opinion that his watches could do without the fusee because they achieved a higher than usual accuracy due to the use of the mainspring. To compensate for the unequal transmission of power resulting from the unregulated spring as it ran down, the watchmakers in Rouen only used the centre part, which delivered a more or less constant force for approximately 30 hours. This, however, required a small scale on the back plate, which indicated the running time left for the spring. The endless screw regulator is very similar to that invented by Nathaniel Barrow in England and typical for the "oignons" without fusee the makers in Rouen produced.
Source: https://watch-wiki.org/index.php?title=Gloria,_Jacques_(1)

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