VII Masculine Subordination

ab

 c

Fig 17a is view of the dial. Hidden under the flap in shown by Fig. 17b is Fig. 17c. Good and scarce Swiss 14K red gold hunting case quarter repeater antique pocket watch with hidden enamel erotic scene circa 1900.

Returning to our loyal figure Pepys goes on to describe how he desires to see, essentially live vicariously through, the horological expert while the latter fixes his watch, Pepys describes how he is “being taught what I never knew before; and it is a thing very well worth my having seen, and am pleased and satisfied with it.” This notion of fascination of the technical advances, has been prevalent from the start of watch making. The watches featured in the exhibition reveal the mechanics of the watch work. Pepys, along with many other watch owners, subconsciously, feels subordinate or inferior to the technical and intricate details of the science, the latter becomes a kind of fantasy, such that Pepys language becomes childish “But Lord, to see how much of my old folly and childishness hangs upon me still, that I cannot forbear carrying my watch in my hand in the coach all this afternoon, and seeing what a-clock it is 100 times. And am apt to think with myself: how could I be so long without one,” or even erotic: His indulgences in the pleasure that his watch reveals: “what I never knew before,” followed by the watch’s compound enclosures, all invite serial disclosures, beginning in ‘desire’ and ending in ‘mightily please and satisfied.’”

It is not a coincidence that the pocket watch was a chamber of hidden erotic scenes. There are a surprising number of watches that reveal under an ulterior flap, painted pornographic scenes such as Fig. 17. The presence of the man behind the fern is interesting, for it prompts the man to select which one to identify with: the one who is doing the act or the one watching afar, not engaged in the "sinful" or undignified act but enjoying vicariously in secret, just like the holder. Furthermore, the woman is looking at the owner of the pocketwatch, interacting with him, as though the owner has the benefit of not being part of the undignified act but still having the woman's attention (unlike the man in the back). This characteristic very much emphasizes the level of privatization in the pocket watch, particularly gendered privatization. It is interesting to see that pocket watches are evidence that privacy and intellectual agency is socially acceptable primarily for men.