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Hotel Nogalhilton Geneve, Nov 11, 2001

LOT 49

Timekeeper with3 Complications"Breguet" Swiss, No. 70549,circa 1800.Fine and very rare 18K gold, large, double-train grande et petite sonnerie clockwatch with early minute-repeating.

CHF 30,000 - 40,000

USD 19,000 - 25,000

Sold: CHF 39,100

C. Four-body, the back cover finely engraved with an urn surrounded by flowers, below a ribbon with the word "Souvenir", the border chased and engraved with repeated foliate pattern, the band with polished ogival cartouches separated by flinqué, polished stepped bezels, gilt hinged cuvette engraved with technical details. D. White enamel, Breguet numerals, outer minute ring, blued steel Breguet hands. M. 55 mm, gilt, fixed barrel with small brackets for the train arbors, cylinder escapement withbrass escape wheel, three-arm gold balance with flat balance spring, striking and repeating trains under small plate set in the lower part formed to leave room for a standing Lepine type barrel and bell, going and striking trains with Breguet continuous stop work, repeating on a bell by depressing the pendant, two levers protruding below the cuvette, one for changing from petite to grande sonnerie, the other for striking/silent.Signed on the dial and cuvette.Diam. 62 mm.


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Grading System
Grade:
Case: 3

Good
Movement: 3*

Good

Overhaul recommended, at buyer's expense
Dial: 3 - 17 - 01

Notes

An excellent example of the best Swiss work at the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth centuries. The case is superbly made, the movement, exceptional for the period, was executed when minute-repeating work was far from common and required exquisite workmanship in order to make it work correctly. This was 60 years before Audemars invented the fixed star enabling an average workman to produce minute-repeaters. There are two possibilities regarding the identity of the maker of ths watch: either he was an excellent maker who signed Breguet's name, which is unlikely given the quality of the work, or it was sold by Breguet when he was in exile in Switzerland in 1794 and 1795. We know that he opened a small workshop in Le Locle, but the records of this workshop have unfortunately not survived. However, it is conceivable that this lot is one of the objects that originated in, or were sold in this shop. The watch has a number of features linking it to Breguet: the dial type,he hands, the continuous stop work system, the Lepine free barrel, far from popular in Switzerland at the time, and the minute-repeating work which he was famous for.