Nicolas Bernard watch with Faith, Hope and Charity

Historical significance

• The V&A names Nicolas Bernard as watchmaker and identifies a gold case painted with Charity on the front and Faith and Hope on the back. Landscapes decorate the dial, sides and interior surfaces. Its summary connects the case to improved miniature painting in enamel around 1630, while naming Jean Toutin among the key figures in that development; this is not an attribution of this particular case to Toutin.
• The exact movement description records a verge escapement, steel balance wheel, pierced single-foot balance cock and a fusee with a renewed gut line. Renewed is a component-level condition statement supplied by the catalogue. It does not make the whole movement a reproduction, nor establish when the line was replaced or whether the watch is safe to wind.
• The museum records purchase at Christie’s in the 1855 sale of Ralph Bernal’s collection. Its provenance account also documents Bernal’s ownership of Jamaican sugar estates and enslaved people, and compensation for slave ownership. This acquisition context belongs to the record rather than being omitted in favour of a decorative-art narrative. No auction lot number or modern valuation has been verified.
• Current operation, service history and public display have not been verified. Conservation comes before restoration and repair; a qualified specialist should assess the object before opening, winding or intervention.

Sources & references

1. https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O377038/

Where sources disagree, the disagreement is stated rather than resolved silently.