Watch 16th - 17th century

Editor: Here we have a metal Watch made sometime in the 16th or 17th century, currently housed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It’s intricately decorated and quite small, really highlighting craftsmanship and detail. How do you interpret this work, beyond its obvious function? Curator: This piece really speaks to the intersection of technology and status in Renaissance society. It's not simply a functional object; it’s a statement of wealth, education, and power. How do you think access to time-keeping devices shaped social structures back then? Editor: Well, wouldn’t the wealthy elite have had more structured schedules and thus more control? I imagine timekeeping gave them a further advantage over laborers and the poor. Curator: Precisely. It reflects emerging capitalistic structures that disciplined time for maximizing labor and profit. The ornamentation, almost excessively baroque, emphasizes the owner's control over resources, even time itself. Consider also how the imagery intaglioed onto its surface relates to contemporary notions of philosophy, science, and even moral virtue. Who had access to that kind of knowledge, and who was excluded? Editor: That makes a lot of sense. It wasn't just about knowing the time but signalling a mastery over the world, both material and intellectual. Curator: Exactly. These objects were also gendered. Who traditionally bore ornamentation, jewels, or displays of wealth and why? Editor: Right, luxury goods were part of systems to establish and enforce difference—rich/poor, male/female... Curator: The watch transforms something mundane into an emblem of dominance, and interrogating it reveals how deeply social power and inequity permeated even daily life. What do you take away from that? Editor: I’m realizing that even an object as simple as a watch tells us so much about the world and power relationships in that world. Thanks, that’s something I'll never un-see!