Watch takes inspiration from play that became an opera

The chain of artistic influences that led to the decoration of a gold-enamel watch made by John Kenable of Frith Street in London in c.1800 can be traced back to 1766.

Extracted from Antiques Trade Gazette | Jonathan Franks

This gold-enamel watch made by John Kenable of Frith Street in London in c.1800 is offered by Dr Crott in Frankfurt on May 11 with an estimate of €27,000-40,000.

In that year the French playwright Jean-François Marmontel published his La Bergère des Alpes (The Shepherdess of the Alps), which was subsequently turned into an opera by Charles Dibdin.

It premiered in Covent Garden in 1780 and five years later Angelika Kauffmann captured a central scene in her painting The Shepherdess of the Alps, in which Gualtherus, the king of Sicily, encounters the poor shepherdess, Griseldis, whom he had married several years before, but sent into exile.

Kauffmann’s romantic pastoral scene was subsequently published as a copperplate engraving by Francesco Bartolozzi. This presumably served as a basis for the unnamed enamel painter of the London watch which is being offered by Dr Crott in Frankfurt on May 11 with an estimate of €27,000-40,000.