A sundial motto, “Oh remember how short my time is,” from a verse in the Old Testament (Psalms 89:47) explains the form of this watch. Reminders of the imminence of death were appropriate to an age when wars and plagues carried off great numbers of people. Numerous vanitas can be found in the seventeenth century; a painting from 1630 in the collection of the Mauritshuis in The Hague by the Dutch artist Pieter Claesz, for example, depicts both a skull and a watch, as well as other symbolic reminders of the shortness of human life.
Among those who subscribed to the Calvinist form of Protestantism there was an inherent focus on time, and watches counted the hours. The skull-shaped watch was one of the products of this tradition, and while some of these watches were made in southern Germany, more of them seem to have been made in seventeenth-century Blois, a center of Calvinist, or Huguenot, watchmakers in France. But the theocracy established in 1541 by John Calvin (1509– 1564) became the prime source of watches with cases in the shape of human skulls in seventeenth- century Geneva. The earliest of these watches is thought to have been made by Martin Duboule (1583–1639) and is now in the collection of the Musée du Louvre. A watch in the Metropolitan Museum’s collection made by Pierre Landré of Blois is not unlike the Duboule watch, and both are believed to be from about 1630. Skull watches continued to be made throughout the eighteenth century in Geneva, and the local firm of Moulinié, Bautte and Moynier was still making them in the early years of the nineteenth century.
Isaac Penard (1619–1676), once thought to have been a watchmaker in Blois, is now known to have been born in Geneva and apprenticed in 1632 to Jaques Sermand, a noted maker of so-called form watches, or watches in fanciful-shaped cases. Penard married in 1644, and while the actual date when he became a master in Geneva is not known, it was usual for a craftsman to marry only after becoming a master and establishing a workshop. The misattribution to Blois was easily made because Genevan masters were required to engrave only their names on their watch movements and not their place of origin. The Museum’s Penard watchcase consists of a hand-raised silver cranium with a riveted loop and ring at the top to which a cast-silver front plate and facial structure has been brazed. The lower skull and jaw, a separate piece of cast silver that displays the naturalistic details of a human skull, is hinged to the back of the cranium and can be opened to reveal the dial of the watch inside. The catch is a separate piece that is brazed to the back of the teeth in the lower jaw. The dial plate is brass and has a repeating leaf design that encircles a silver chapter of hours (I–XII), with the half hours marked by sprigs. A ring of floral ornament and a single brass hand issuing from a central flower-like ornament completes the design.
The movement is also hinged to the back of the cranium. It consists of two oval brass plates held apart by four baluster pillars; three pillars are pinned to the back plate of the watch. The movement is spring driven with a gut fusee, and it has three wheels ending in a verge escapement. The back plate was originally fitted with a ratchet and click regulator for the setup of the mainspring. Only the openwork click and the ratchet wheel remain. The screwed-on balance cock is ornamented with openwork floral scrolling, and the engraved signature “Isaac Penard” appears below the cock. From [The MET](https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/194166)
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A sundial motto, “Oh remember how short my time is,” from a verse in the Old Testament (Psalms 89:47) explains the form of this watch. Reminders of the imminence of death were appropriate to an age when wars and plagues carried off great numbers of people. Numerous vanitas can be found in the seventeenth century; a painting from 1630 in the collection of the Mauritshuis in The Hague by the Dutch artist Pieter Claesz, for example, depicts both a skull and a watch, as well as other symbolic reminders of the shortness of human life.
Among those who subscribed to the Calvinist form of Protestantism there was an inherent focus on time, and watches counted the hours. The skull-shaped watch was one of the products of this tradition, and while some of these watches were made in southern Germany, more of them seem to have been made in seventeenth-century Blois, a center of Calvinist, or Huguenot, watchmakers in France. But the theocracy established in 1541 by John Calvin (1509– 1564) became the prime source of watches with cases in the shape of human skulls in seventeenth- century Geneva. The earliest of these watches is thought to have been made by Martin Duboule (1583–1639) and is now in the collection of the Musée du Louvre. A watch in the Metropolitan Museum’s collection made by Pierre Landré of Blois is not unlike the Duboule watch, and both are believed to be from about 1630. Skull watches continued to be made throughout the eighteenth century in Geneva, and the local firm of Moulinié, Bautte and Moynier was still making them in the early years of the nineteenth century.
Isaac Penard (1619–1676), once thought to have been a watchmaker in Blois, is now known to have been born in Geneva and apprenticed in 1632 to Jaques Sermand, a noted maker of so-called form watches, or watches in fanciful-shaped cases. Penard married in 1644, and while the actual date when he became a master in Geneva is not known, it was usual for a craftsman to marry only after becoming a master and establishing a workshop. The misattribution to Blois was easily made because Genevan masters were required to engrave only their names on their watch movements and not their place of origin. The Museum’s Penard watchcase consists of a hand-raised silver cranium with a riveted loop and ring at the top to which a cast-silver front plate and facial structure has been brazed. The lower skull and jaw, a separate piece of cast silver that displays the naturalistic details of a human skull, is hinged to the back of the cranium and can be opened to reveal the dial of the watch inside. The catch is a separate piece that is brazed to the back of the teeth in the lower jaw. The dial plate is brass and has a repeating leaf design that encircles a silver chapter of hours (I–XII), with the half hours marked by sprigs. A ring of floral ornament and a single brass hand issuing from a central flower-like ornament completes the design.
The movement is also hinged to the back of the cranium. It consists of two oval brass plates held apart by four baluster pillars; three pillars are pinned to the back plate of the watch. The movement is spring driven with a gut fusee, and it has three wheels ending in a verge escapement. The back plate was originally fitted with a ratchet and click regulator for the setup of the mainspring. Only the openwork click and the ratchet wheel remain. The screwed-on balance cock is ornamented with openwork floral scrolling, and the engraved signature “Isaac Penard” appears below the cock. From [The MET](https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/194166)