PLATE XLVIII
eighteenth-century chatelaines
Beside the watch was hung the watch-key and seals, and all sorts of ornamental knick-knacks, as étuis and such-like. The elaborate chatelaine upon which nearly every conceivable kind of trinket could be attached, is the "equipage" thus described by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu in her fourth Town Eclogue:—
Behold this equipage by Mathers wrought
With fifty guineas (a great pen'orth!) bought!
See on the tooth-pick Mars and Cupid strive,
And both the struggling figures seem to live.
Upon the bottom see the Queen's bright face;
A myrtle foliage round the thimble case;
Jove, Jove himself does on the scissars shine,
The metal and the workmanship divine.
While women carried elaborate chatelaines, men hung from the watch in the fob-pocket bunches of seals which dangled beneath their embroidered waistcoats. Thus in Monsieur à la Mode, published about 1753, we read of—
A repeater by Graham, which the hours reveals;
Almost overbalanced with nick-nacks and seals.
It was the seal above all which experienced particular artistic development. Ever since the sixteenth century the seal had been worn in addition to the signet ring. Though hung perhaps like a pomander from a chain at the neck or from the girdle, the seal seems to have been but rarely displayed on the person until the general introduction in the early seventeenth century of the watch, to which for more than a couple of centuries it was a regular accompaniment. The majority of seventeenth-century seals are of silver with the arms engraved in the metal; others of steel are on swivels and have three faces; others, again, of gold set with stones engraved with heraldic devices, have finely worked shanks, occasionally enriched with delicate enamel-work. The gold seals of the eighteenth century, which are among the best examples extant of rococo jewellery, are of open-work in the form of scroll and shell patterns, of admirable design and workmanship. It is out of the question to attempt a description of the numerous attractive forms these pendent seals assumed, or the peculiar interest they possess from an heraldic point of view.
About the year 1772 fashionable men carried a watch in each fob-pocket, from which hung bunches of seals and chains. From the custom set in England of introducing masculine fashions into dress, ladies likewise wore two watches, one on each side, together with rattling breloques, seals, and other appendages. In addition to the real watch with beautifully enamelled back which adorned the left side, they wore on the right what was called a fausse montre or false watch. These false watches were, however, often little less costly than the genuine article, being made of gold and silver, with jewelled and enamelled backs. The front had either an imitation dial-plate, some fanciful device, or a pin-cushion. For those of less ample means the fausse montre was made of gilt metal or even of coloured foils.