Look, Wen Hao, we are the window of jewels and jade!
Luxury watches have always been a status symbol in the eyes of many friends. Whether for men or women, a brand-name watch has basically become a manifestation of style. Senior ladies with gold collars in the office building will wear a beautiful and expensive watch, which will make the ladies more capable and temperament. More successful men prefer to wear branded watches to express their details and tastes, such as Green Water Ghost and Patek Philippe.
Both rich friends and stars like to wear a good watch, especially those jewelry watches. In fact, throughout the ages, people's love for clocks and watches is the same. Nowadays, many luxury and big-name jewels have been favored by many rich friends, and the ancient emperors' love and pursuit of clocks can be said to be even worse. The jewelry and clocks that once belonged to the emperor still exude unparalleled charm despite the years.
According to records and descriptions, western clocks and watches were the darlings of Ming and Qing dynasties. In these two times, western clocks and watches gradually entered the court and were deeply loved by emperors. These jewelry clocks not only have foreign skills, but also contain many elements of our China culture. Under the combination of Chinese and western styles, many clocks and watches with different styles were born. For example, the copper-plated enamel-inlaid duck lotus barrel clock in the above picture was made by the Qing palace internal affairs office during the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty.
As friends all know, our emperors in the Qing Dynasty liked ornaments very much, so the clocks and watches in the Qing Palace were used for display or viewing besides timing, so they were often equipped with movable mechanical devices. Therefore, when this lotus jar clock is started, the petals will open with the accompaniment of music, revealing the queen mother in the flower heart and the boy and white ape who bow down to offer peaches. This technology is also very interesting and pleasing to the eye now. I have to say that emperors still enjoy it.
Most of the court clocks and watches in the Qing Dynasty were gorgeous and complicated. All kinds of pictographic flowers and birds are common decorations, whether it is the Qing Palace Office, Guangzhou clocks and watches, or western clocks and watches from Britain and France. Moreover, watches in the Qing Dynasty became the representative of luxury goods at that time with their exquisite design, peculiar functions, exquisite decoration and valuable materials, just like those luxury big-name high-definition watches we see now.
Therefore, in order to cater to the preferences of emperors, materials are becoming more and more expensive, and styles are becoming more and more fancy, especially mechanical change devices such as playing music, turning water, keeping people, and sailing clocks. Taking novelty as the first criterion, the timing function is pushed to a secondary position. Just like the above two water clocks, they can create various flowing water scenes such as plane water, fountain water and waterfall water, which are beautiful and interesting.
This is similar to those luxury brand watches that sometimes produce styles that we mortals can't understand. We can't help making fun of it. Sword is different from ordinary people's way and seems to be universal in ancient and modern times.
However, these jewelry clocks and watches of the predecessors are not all "fancy", and many of them are amazing and unforgettable. For example, this watch with a gold diamond pin looks like an exquisite and expensive pin, but it is actually a clock when its wings are open. This ingenious design is definitely an invincible big-name design now, and people can't help but imagine which noble figure wore this diamond pin watch on what occasion.
And this is also a needle-type gold enamel pomegranate watch. If you didn't see the dial at the bottom, who would have thought it was still a clock? When she showed this picture to her friends, she was not calm at all. She said that if there was a similar model for sale now, she would buy one even if she traveled thousands of miles across the province.
In addition to the above, there are many amazing clocks and watches, which can't be shared with friends because of space constraints, but I think we can also get a little glimpse of the combination of luxury and whimsy of emperors through these jewelry clocks and watches.
They are amazing, fancy, distracting and interesting. Just like the clock ticking, there are hundreds of kinds of life and flavors in the past years, but I don't know which one my friends have tasted and which clock surprises me.