Description: Gilt copper dials with white enamelled cartouches (47 – 50.3mm). Cartouches with blue or black Roman numerals for the hours one with small cartouches for the Arabic minutes (most lacking). Three feet for fixing to the dial plate. Counter – enamel unsigned. Openings for the case bolt, hour and minute pinion and winding hole. Gilt centre panels decorated with symmetrical scroll, animal and architectural elements
Additional Info:
The first dials used for the ‘onion style’ watches in fashion during the rule of Louis XIV were copper base with white enamel and blue or black enamelled Roman hour numerals with Arabic minute numerals. First with some decorative features, towards 1685 they became gilt with enamelled cartouches bearing blue or black Roman numerals. Some types retain the Arabic minute indication on separate small cartouches on the edge. Most dials of this type have an inserted enamelled ring with five minute markings. These dials were used with early one handed ‘onions’ or with two handed versions, as soon as the minute hand got introduced. Bigger versions of these dials were used for mantel clocks until very late into the 18th century. Not only French workshops used these dials, also Swiss, German and Italian workshop are known to have followed the French Louis XIV taste.
Antiquarian Horology 
