Chatelaine

Copper alloy chatelaine hook, gilded and chased with figures, a recumbent lion and a ship. The term used at this date for this type of waist ornament was a ‘chain and swivel’, as the romantic term ‘chatelaine’ was not used until the 1840s.
It is marked on the hook ‘J Pinchbeck’ for John Pinchbeck, who was recorded in Cheapside in 1738. He was the son of Christopher Pinchbeck (d.1732), inventor of the copper and zinc alloy called ‘Pinchbeck’, which was offered to the public as an untarnishable substitute for gold.
It is interesting to note that this piece has been made of a gilded base metal, so is not made of ‘Pinchbeck’. This bears out the assertion of Edward Pinchbeck, another son of the inventor, that his father ‘did not dispose of one grain of his curious metal, which so nearly resembles gold in colour, smell and ductility to any jeweller whatever’.