Art experts think they may have found the world’s oldest painting to feature an image of a watch.

The Science Museum is investigating the 450-year-old portrait, thought to be of Cosimo I de Medici, Duke of Florence, holding a golden timepiece.

Curators have sent their findings to renaissance experts at the Uffizi gallery in Florence, and are awaiting their comments.

The painting is being shown as part of the museum’s Measuring Time gallery.

The first watches appeared shortly after 1500 in Germany and horologists believe the picture, painted by renaissance master Maso da San Friano around 1560, “may well be the oldest to show a true watch”.

Science Museum curator Rob Skitmore said the watch was thought to be from southern Germany.

“As Cosimo was a great patron of science and technology, it is entirely likely he would have owned a watch of this kind which he displays here with pride,” he said.

“The picture shows the close linkage between science and art, especially in those days.”

(BBC News)

Here are a few other 16th century portraits in which the subject is shown with scientific instruments:

What makes the portrait in the afore-quoted article notable is that it is an early depiction of a clockwork timepiece that would have been worn on one’s person, rather than the small table-clocks on the earlier George Gisze and Lady Dacre portraits. (Depictions of timepieces in general are more related to the momento mori genre, I think, rather than an indication of the sitter’s support for technology and the sciences; see also these portraits with hourglasses, for example, or the clock on the wall in this c. 1450 portrait by Rogier van der Weyden.)